Pryde and Wisdom: The Greatest Miracle of All
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: A few months after Kitty and Pete break up, she calls him up with some unexpected news.
1. Default Chapter

TangleToy@cs.com  
  
(Marvel): "Big Little Surprises" 1/?  
  
Addition to Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is my first piece to the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
"Big Little Surprises"  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Remember how you said every time you see me, I seem a little more grown than you thought? Mom, you might want to have a seat. Dad, maybe you'd like a cigar?"  
  
The girl took a deep breath. Her eyes that had seen much of this world and others, and only a taste all at once, focused reflecting her emotions inside. What happened would be shocking to them, but then it was still a shock to her. Her fingers touched the Silver Star that hung from her neck, taking strength in it and looked at them trembling inside.  
  
"Mom, Dad I'm pregnant."  
  
The young woman blinked tightening her hold on the long, thin plastic object she was holding in her hands, as she focused on her reflection in the mirror in front of her. That was all she could think of for the first moments, how she would tell her parents that news. She blinked again looking at herself in the mirror, still baring a shower fresh look, but then she had just stepped out of her shower and was wrapped in white towels. One for her body, the other holding the swirl of damp long locks that was her hair.  
  
"I'm pregnant."  
  
The words were a bare still startled whisper in the bathroom's clutter of steam and the already running fan, barely even to be heard, but she heard, she felt the words leave her lips as they were the first since she'd looked at the box afterwards. She looked down at it again with its blue fuzzy line. A replicant from the Hank rather than a generic store brand so the results weren't faulty. She'd given him some phony excuse and still wasn't sure if he'd even bought it.  
  
Beyond a doubt Kitty already knew who he THE FATHER was. There had only ever been him. She hadn't even come to terms with the idea of moving on to someone else, or the idea that someone out there could be better. He was only a void now that she somehow grown to love. One she'd seemingly kept. She had only wanted him, but he'd made his decision. Was it a man's or cowards?  
  
Everything around here at the X-Mansion had been so normal, so much so that she could loose herself in the daily routine of saving the world. She could forget the lost world crumbling inside, if she could save the outer one. She could because there was no time to stop and breath, no less realize something had been happening. Sure, three months ago her monthly had acted up a small bit. First being late, second being shorter and spotty, and third still missing now for the 6th month.  
  
She'd put it off as stress, being an X-Men again was like that. You push off the personal stuff for saving the world, dealing with homicidal maniacs, and remembering to drink coffee so you were still awake when doing computer repairs at four in the morning. It was normal. She hadn't dwelled on it with the whole of the Search for Xavier, Magneto War, and the Twelve, it had been one thing after another happening, and she'd been lucky some mornings if she remembered to eat.  
  
Eating, well that brought up the other thing she over looked. She gained a few pounds, but she'd guessed it was a small effect of the break up hitting her hard. So to counter act it all she taken up doing gymnastic routines in the early hours and evenings when she could and a new modern dance class for weekends to fill her time. Nothing that could have hurt her body, but she hadn't been specifically careful either.  
  
"I'm pregnant," she repeated with hollow tones.  
  
The words still sounded like they weren't coming form her. Nothing that could have hurt her? Kitty's expression fell almost as she put the pregnancy test down and pulled the towel over her hair down, starting to pat her hair dry with it. Nothing that could hurt her body? She risked life and limb everyday for others, for herself, for people who wouldn't give a damn in the end, for a world that wouldn't mourn her passing or realize how often and how regularly she helped save its ass.  
  
God, she missed him suddenly. Walking across the hallway with the test and towels half-dripping, she got back to her room as she always did: fast. That gaping space in her chest seeming hollow and then suddenly in that overwhelming dark memory a light burst forth. She looked up at the mirror a second as she stopped moving the towel to dry her hair to stare at her reflection once more. Letting her arms fall slowly, one held the towel and one hand moved to lie against her just beginning to show stomach on top for a second as she looked up as odd scamp of a smile starting to touch her lips.  
  
"I'm pregnant."  
  
ShadowCat's eyes slid over her dresser and note jotted on a small white card, then her new small black cellular phone. She took off her towel and started rubbing water off her legs and arms and patting her body gently in other places to remove the moisture.  
  
She had this feeling that was reaching down into her arms and legs. This small special person was starting to grow inside her. This little light to shine out of the darkness that had been shadowing her. Would it be a boy or girl? Would it be a mutant? She couldn't help the smile that was starting spread across her face.  
  
Tossing the towel on a chair for the second, she glanced at the room only a second before going to her dresser drawers. The room had two beds, hers; a bit unmade and surrounded by her things, and a second which was made but unoccupied. She used to share the room with someone incredibly close to her and she shared a room afterwards with two other persons, but she wasn't up to another person here yet.  
  
She pulled out a pair of tight black jeans slipping them on not as easily as she used to, and then a crisp white button up woman's shirt that came in at the waist, went a little over her top of the pants and cut down with a collar for medium cut to the first button. It went well with her leather jacket all together. Finishing up her buttons over her stomach she wondered if this feeling was what people called the "glowing" pregnant woman felt. It was a wonder Maddie had walked around in a natural high almost if this was how she felt inside.  
  
So far she was the only person that knew, Jean and the Professor weren't easily adept at getting to her thoughts all the time, and she'd given neither a reason to pry. No one else was a worry for figuring out yet. Logan. She didn't have an idea were the limits of his sense's went or if he knew already. She wanted him to be the second to know not the first.  
  
Picking up her shoes with one hand and then the card on the dresser she read over the note. It was from Remy. Just a number and a quick jot that her small idea of the someone who might know where he was had paid off. The number. No matter how many states, countries, cities, minutes, hours or days he was only a number away.  
  
"I'm pregnant," Kitty said this time with more conviction.  
  
Looking at it the words began to sink in suddenly as if she just finally heard it for the first time. It was his, too. He'd left. He'd chosen to leave of free volition. How would he feel about this baby if he'd already moved on? Her upper teeth lightly bit into her lower lip in a sudden worry as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, the shoes falling from her hands.  
  
'What if he's moved on?' she wondered to herself. 'What he has someone else, and doesn't want to hear from me. What if,' she paused. The though was too terrible. 'What if he didn't mean it when he said he loved me?'  
  
"No. Stop," she commander herself in the silence. She shook her head, letting her damp, dark hair falling around her face like side veils, shivered in the silence of her bedroom. None of that would change the fact he deserved to know right away.  
  
A few moments later she released her arms as she bent down collecting her shoes and picked up the black cellular phone with the same hand that held the card. She moved off away from the dresser and sat down on the end of her bed. Setting the shoes next to her she took a few slow breaths as she looked at the card and dialed the first four numbers.  
  
Her heart was already starting to race, and she stared at the green LSD screen silently. Seven more numbers and the phone would ring. She would have to say those words she said so many times already.  
  
"I'm pregnant," ShadowCat practiced once more, her voice shaking only slightly this time.  
  
She raised a finger starting to dial the real number now, the seven-digit part. Kitty got through the first three before stopping again.  
  
How could she go through with this? She was finally done with crying when she pulled her blankets tight around wishing they were his arms in the middle of the night when she woke up and swore she could almost smell him or felt like she just missed a light, warm breath into her hair during his sleep. Every time that it happened it had been the same and she'd awoken to being alone in her bedroom, so alone.  
  
She tried to swallow, and her throat was parched as she began to push the next two digits of the last four of the phone number.  
  
Over wishing she could just for one second hear him swear, or smell the scent that the cigarette's left on her from being so close inside his arms, locked away from the world in their embrace. Could she get through all this without going through it all again?  
  
ShadowCat pressed the second to last digit. Soon the phone would ring. Soon she would be bombarded by the chance possibility he was actually there. She was her last hope. Either that or he'd vanished into the night like he could, like he had that day. He had floated away from her arms, but never her heart, because he'd taken that with him when he'd sailed away.  
  
She pressed the last digit and raised the phone to her ear slowly. Her heartbeat was like a drum in her ear, almost drowning out the sound of the phone as it began to ring. Leaning it against her ear as it kept ringing she began to put on her shoes.  
  
Maybe they weren't home, or worse maybe they were. She let out a small sigh as she kept on with her shoes till someone finally picked up. She concentrated on her shoes as she nodded as she talked.  
  
"Hello. Yes, I know he's there. Can I please speak to him?"  
  
Her fingers began to tremor. Or was it her entire body? There was no backing down now. Hanging up simply couldn't be done. She crossed the point of no return; she was putting herself back into hands that she wasn't sure would even be open anymore.  
  
As the voice hit the phone with a greeting so small in meaning and so missed it had her ready to clutch her pillow if there was a chance of this going wrong in the next few seconds. She took a deep breath and pulling on all the strength in her body began to speak again.  
  
"Pete. It's Kitty. We need to talk."  
  
To be continued? 


	2. Part II

(Pryde/Wisdom) "Scotch & Company, Could Anything be Worse?" 2/?  
  
~*~*~  
  
Addition to Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Small Addendum: Yes, the tenses and point of view are supposed to do some back and forth changing so it's not been over looked by everyone who's so far read as my Beta's.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is another addition to my first piece "Big Little Surprises" to the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
"Scotch & Company, Could Anything be Worse?"  
  
~*~*~  
  
It's important.  
  
That's what you've got. All you've got.  
  
It's important.  
  
That's exactly what the chippie says months after you parted ways. Months where neither of you has made the slightest reach because of that other guy nothing happened with. So the girl who stoked the embers of you heart, and redeemed your soul say "It's important" and you're supposed to forget she also broke that heart, tore that soul to pieces and come running like a love, sick school boy slave?  
  
No. Not you, never you. You don't do that. No girl can make you come running, throwing everything you've settled into just because she says "It's Important."  
  
Right. That is why you raced like a mad man through those streets to catch the next ruddy plane out of the there and into New York, ending yourself in an argument with a ugly careless plane boy, with something obviously stuck where the sun didn't shine, who told you there were no more tickets and caused a huge hullabaloo. A guy you also bribed to get on to the plane, into first class no less, so you could be in New York before the next day was even half over.  
  
All because some girl you first thought was a 'nosy cow' says "It's important".  
  
Pete shook his head and took another gulp from the glass of scotch. Bloody Americans atleast knew how to make some top notch drinks if you paid enough money. He leaned back in the overly plush seat, needing to move, needing to speed the plane up. She'd said it was important. His late ex, Kitty, or more aptly his 'Pryde'.  
  
The one the drinks couldn't even help him forget for a moment. The drinks only knocked him and made him dream. She was there, too. She was there from when his eyes closed till his eyes opened, and then her memory rang in his head while he walked around pretending he was living. The beautiful eyes that went from overwhelmingly deep brown to copper to hazel, and the beautiful long locks of chestnut brown hair. And that was still only the very beginning.  
  
The thought of her almost like a pain, a moment to be purged, he finished the drink and handed it off to an attendant for another. A stronger one.  
  
Maybe Romany was right. She probably didn't think he remembered the things she'd said, but they hounded him. They ferociously followed him with the teeth truth that bit into his side every moment he remembered again. The problem with being a guy, who 'could' drink, was you got to be a really good 'drunk'. There was always a higher tolerance, and it took longer to get truly smashed.  
  
She wasn't happy with the fact he'd gone and attempted getting himself smashed inside her apartment where he had currently been staying, about two weeks in a row. She'd gotten annoyed at the end of the first, but he cleaned up a little by mid second because of her outburst. He still remembered her words with crystal clarity as if she could have been saying them right then. Her flashing eyes, her reddened cheeks her flushed face.  
  
"You're a sore sight, don't you know that? I've seen mice with bigger backbones!!! You are more afraid of facing up to the fact you might have made a mistake, more terrified of confronting that which makes you listless, drunk, and lost than you are of running away, aren't you? You'd rather ignore the fact you could go back, go to her without having to worry about trying to find her, and run wouldn't you? And so you run to the ends of time, and space right at the bottom of your bottle?  
  
Good God fucking damn-it, Pete, it's not like it's the Queen or the end of the ruddy world!!! You're the one condemning yourself by sitting on my couch and drinking yourself into oblivion, and I won't stand for it here any longer! You are a coward! Do you hear me, Pete Wisdom? A coward. A low, down, out right, bloody coward, and if you weren't my blood, I'd be ashamed to say I know you."  
  
He hadn't even been drunk far enough for that not to flay his senses to suddenly stone cold sober again. They met each other's eyes, and she left for her bedroom. She regretted the words he was sure of that even thanked him when the bottles vanished. Explosive temper, like their father. She raged like a river without a block till it was out, made him wonder if she was drunk. She was regretting it days after even thought he'd deserved it and she was still making up for it in small ways, but she'd been right.  
  
No maybe, you English git. Romany had been so right she could have pierced the bulls eye straight through with a silver arrow. She'd only been wrong about one thing, about it not being the end of the world. She'd been your world, hadn't she? And you just pushed her away by leaving her like she was some unimportant object, some toy, you'd just lost interest in.  
  
So for her, Romany, only sister, the drinks vanished and he only came home smelling like alcohol sometimes. He'd be leaving soon he told her. It's been a month and a half-ago then hadn't it? Never got your foot out the door for long. Took up some odd jobs, till rumors started to circulate and your buddy's and clients were the ones to mention it. You were sullied, somehow changed like you had a vendetta against the world. No care, like you wanted revenge, or carried a dome of anger inside your chest.  
  
Spoilt. Damaged goods. You were a liability even more than you always loved to be. They thought you were loosing your edge of sanity.  
  
You never told them about her.  
  
"What was her name?"  
  
Pete blinked his eyes; his hand tightening on the drink the stewardess had already brought back. There was someone sitting next to him now. She was an uncanny beauty in the simple girl next doorway, with this tumble of auburn hair to her shoulders and dark rich tanned golden skin, but the eyes of deep brown with green fleck were too wide and open.  
  
"W'ot?"  
  
The girl smiled radiantly and it dimpled her cheeks, giving him a second to look at her. She looked much out of place on the plane with her out fit. The light of the lightest bleach blue bell-bottoms that hugged her hips and thighs and bellowed around her calves to her feet where only her toes peeked out, held only by small dark brown sandals. She also wore a deep, but sparkly green emerald bikini top with a button up white sheer top with only the two buttons nearest to the bathing suit buttoned. It also buttoned at her wrists but they were left undone. She was beach bunny, hippie material by the look of it, even a pair of sunglasses hanging from the buttoned area.  
  
What the hell was she doin on this side of the world bothering him didn't she have a beach to chant on?  
  
"I didn't mean to startled you. Really," she said with an odd wisp of a smile as she turned sitting slanted across the seat to look at him. "You just have that look where either you just lost your best friend, or your girl. It was a half and half guess really."  
  
Pete stared at her oddly. What was next? Crystals, Tarot and aura readings? When had he asked for someone to be his company on this plane ride? Wasn't it bad enough he was on pins and needles because of that phone call? The phone call was just too vague for Kitty. She just didn't act like that, which worried him even more. She'd said something about it being serious, and then this momentary silence had descended. Next she'd started a sentence with 'I'm', and silence had reign. Again.  
  
While he wasn't much in the mood for games this was Kitty. The girl who he would have stopped time for if she asked it three months ago. Fag, he'd do it now if she asked. Next had come some slow babble of him deserving more, what they had been deserving more than this 'mere call'. And if that was off enough, the way her voice was trembling had his hands in a steel grasp of the phone at his ear.  
  
"I'm Kylie," the girl offered happily, simply making him step back into sitting on the plane, and start packing away the drink in his hand that had grown warm. "Kylie Summers."  
  
"Pete," he grumbled gruffly. He wasn't sitting here. He was telling himself it wasn't anything serious. Lousy luck that bloody did. I'm what? I'm in trouble? I'm sick? I'm dying? Ridiculous. Those serious "we need to talk" conversation were always the start of the end of people's normal life. The plane was going damn slow.  
  
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Pete. You on the plane just to New York or are you riding all the way through to Chicago?"  
  
Pete leaned back in his seat, continuing to down his drink and resigning himself to the fate of the chattering hippie that had plopped and glued herself to the seat next to his, since she didn't seem to be picking up the blunt point he didn't want anyone there. He wanted his solitude.  
  
"N'w York," he grunted between swallows.  
  
Kylie brightened another shade almost visibly with her smile widening. "What a coincidence. So am I. Meeting the troupe and my brother there. The time a part's been stressful on us both. Going home or visiting someone? Or something else?"  
  
"Visit'n." because staying was out of the question. He loved playing with fire, he didn't like to amerce himself in it. He couldn't be that close and that far from her again, not when she'd been his from sun up to sun down not so long ago. The girls all too cheerful chatter was both making him tense up when she spoke, but for some reason he was relaxing.  
  
The alcohol was kicking in.  
  
"Do you ever smile?" she asked, one of her delicate eyebrows raising, as her hand swung a pair of dog chains that hung down from her neck. She wasn't about to give up this tug-of-war or wills what have it. She'd met some snooty men, her brother could even be on of them, but he was being down right unhelpful at all. "Or do you only grouse and spit out one word sentences?"  
  
"Grouse." Pete muttered unhelpfully, finishing the drink and hitting the stewardess button. That would give her the hint. He watched her expression become a momentary dour frown, before it passed so quickly, like someone hitting a light switch. And suddenly it wasn't an expression of anger, or brilliant warmth, but of a kind of understanding. Apathy. Edging on pity.  
  
"She must have been incredibly important to you."  
  
"The world," he let the words fall like a light sigh; without one. His head against the overly stuffed seat looking out the window he missed it when the girl beside him shushed away the stewardess with a smile and wave of her hand that showed she'd dealt with people waiting on her before. The conversation direction made him see the last days. "And m're."  
  
Kylie lips half turned a smile, even though she regretted doing what she'd done to get him to actually says more than one word. If it weren't for her brother and she getting closer by moment, and mile and hour, she wouldn't have known it in exacts or acted as such.  
  
He was a devilish figure, the man who sat next to her, in his ragged appearance. It was what had drawn her over here. Her, sheltered, spoiledly sweet, soft spoken, and all too bright heart shining Kylie Summers. The disheveled suit he bore, with the loosened black tie and then black cloak that seemed to wrap around him like some kind of physical protection from the world. It was something about him that made her think of her brother. Yes, that must have been it.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Th'ngs. She.We part'd ways aft'r," Pete said his voice mumbling between his lips with a light slur. He was sinking in a feeling that had somehow started at his toes and was filling him at the second. Not peaceful, or content feeling, just a mild sedating one, that made him feel like he was watching the conversation not taking part in it. The wonders of airplane beverages, they always had the stock. What had he been thinking about?  
  
He could see Romany standing there holding the phone in one hand, with her thumb over the receiver holes as she told him to get in there. Told him to take his own calls because she wasn't an answering machine service and didn't have the time since she should be on her way to work. And there she'd been, grabbing her keys and watching him as he hung up, before she held out his coat to him.  
  
She held the coat tight the first time he'd reached for it as she opened the front door. He'd looked at her to tell her to let go before he was going to yank it out from her hold, but she had the oddest expression on her face. If anyone could embody a regretful, half goodbye, Romany could. She smiled oddly as she released the coat then, and said 'She's good for you, little brother. Don't blow yourself out of the water this time.'  
  
Romany's good at playing the hard big sister, but she loves you unconditionally, doesn't she?  
  
Even when she seems to be the only one.  
  
"Why are you going back then?" Kylie's curious and insistent voice again broken the reverie of the Londoner's thoughts that were settling again over the thin ice that covered a lake of worries and still aging regrets and brought him back to the chilled area he was contained in.  
  
"H've to. She said-" he started and got submarined by the pilot speaking through intercom. They'd be landing shortly. Was the bloody flight over? It had taken long enough. He opened his eyes, focusing on the seat in front of him. He moved back the sleeve of his trench coat to look at his watch, figured in the time changes. He had a few hours still.  
  
It's important. That's what she'd said.  
  
Kitty had given him directions to some place out side Salem City. She'd said it was a cross between bar and a dinner. It looked like she was setting a meeting halfway, but what exactly was this "Harry's"? And what had she tried to say on the phone? He closed his eyes with a resigned shift to his body as the plane began to descend. A cellular phone sounded next to him and opened one eye to see the girl still sitting next to him.  
  
She'd been so quiet he hadn't even noticed during the last few minutes naturally guessing she'd finally just given up like he wanted.  
  
"Ky, I thought we promise no calls till I was in New York."  
  
"No," Kylie laughed her voice a pact of affection and pleasure. "Being 40 feet over the city doesn't count. You really are crazy, you know that right?"  
  
"Yeah, that means I must be crazy, too. Did you get my new hardware?"  
  
"I know I don't have to ask but is it there with you? Are you at the doorway?"  
  
"Ohhh, your too good to me, Ky. Hand in hand forever-"  
  
She laughed again, as she seemed to have cringed almost as the wheels hit the ground beneath them. "I missed you, too. I love you, Ky. I'll see you in a few minutes."  
  
Fag. Bloody life. Stuck me with some bubbling chippie who's in love with whatever git's on the other end of that line. The window looks nice and we're touching the ground. I'm sure I've jumped further distance to escape worse. Ruddy fate.  
  
Everyone started moving and Kylie finally moved away to get her bag, coming back when Pete finally started moving to leave. He seemed so much like her brother to her when he got depressed it was almost freaky. She walked back over, holding her backpack by the top strap. She smiled even when he looked back realizing she was still standing there and appeared to grind his teeth.  
  
So he wasn't a people person that didn't damper her. Slowly she released what she'd done, atleast safe in the knowledge he'd never know. He looked so like her brother when he gotten broken up over a girl.  
  
"I hope everything works out for you, Pete." She spontaneously moved close placing a kiss against two of her fingers and touching his cheek, before stepping back making a small odd sign with her hand, moving her hand in a circle with all fingers out except the pink and ring finger, which were bent. "Blessed Be."  
  
~*~*~  
  
He pulled into the parking lot like a mad man. It was a repetitive driving habit now but New York had worse, besides the drive had been long from the capital. To have a surprise rental car waiting for him was a thing Romany had done on his behalf. He really owed her. More than he ever realized it when he had the chances to actually pay her back. So here he was. This was Harry's?  
  
First Opinion. It looked like an old fogies joint.  
  
She was in there. What do you do with your ex? Hug her? Shake her hand? Never mind, just keep your hands in your pockets, avoid that all together till you know what it's all about.  
  
Getting out was easy. Sky was gray, wind was harsh. World against him today, too. What more waited on the other side? He opened the front door slowly, running a hand through his rough and tumble black hair, as he surveyed the place. Had a bar that was a plus. Juke box and booths, too.  
  
Second Opinion. Wasn't too bad. Could be better, but wasn't too bad.  
  
He kept looking around, nodding once to a plump man in an apron behind the counter who was drying a pitcher. Hey, look, maybe that was Harry even. Closer inspection.  
  
His eyes found what they had been searching for, and avoiding all at once, and it felt like someone was holding his heart above an abyss, over a huge light, making every tear suddenly that much clearer, crystalline.  
  
Kitty was sitting in the furthest back booth, her nose in a book. He strained for a second without walking closer to see the title. Fundamentalist of Technological Environmental Control and other New Age Technology Theories. She was reading and not reading, he could see it clearly in her eyes from across the dinner even. She was staring at the center of the page eye unwaveringly as if entranced.  
  
Her long tresses of chestnut brown hair framed her face, shadowing it, and flowed over her shoulders, concealing parts of her face. It was her expression that choked his heart beyond the pain and regret that flooded him though. Her teeth worried her bottom lip ever so lightly, and she looked like she was ready to jump if anything startled her. Worried? Scared? Of him?  
  
Pete walked forward. She was too beautiful, and the air around the table too tight. Sticking a hand in a pocket and arguing momentarily with the box pulled out a cigarette as he reached the booth; he stopped in front of it.  
  
"Pryde," he declared it like it could have been some proclamation -or plea- not loud or soft exactly, but light enough that he was positive he hadn't given away anything.  
  
Kitty looked up from her book, closing it slowly as she just looked up at him, holding her place with a finger. He wondered if his lungs had simply stopped working as he'd met those large brown eyes, because the objective to breath was as lost as any resolve he'd had seconds ago.  
  
"Pete," her voice seemed the same as his, somehow formal, but elusively seeming to hint at other emotions as it trembled and stopped trembling by the end. She blinked and seemed to almost curl into where she sat becoming smaller but without moving as she nodded for him to sit across from her.  
  
To be continued? 


	3. Part III

Addition to Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Small Addendum: Yes, the tenses and point of view are supposed to do some back and forth changing so it's not been over looked by everyone who's so far read as my Beta's.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is another addition to my first piece "Big Little Surprises" and second piece "Scotch & Company: Could Anything Be Worse?" to the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad. Flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you. I'd also like to inform you all I did name it finally.  
  
~*~*~  
  
The Greatest Miracle of All  
  
Part III "What MAN has PULLED asunder."  
  
~*~*~  
  
(Prior to the ending of Part II)  
  
She threw the keys on the counter, with a clatter of sharp noise. She had been forced to borrow Logan's jeep with her car still being fixed by he himself and Remy. It made a squealing noise after 10 minutes of driving and pulled to the right, so they'd insisted on fixing it rather than letting her take it to a mechanic.  
  
Yesterday she would gave complained about wanting her car. Today she could have cared less if it was the Black Bird or a ride on a giant pink snail. Today the world could have fallen apart when she left the mansion and not even super powered Alpha Mutants could have dragged her back if they'd threatened to steal all the chocolate in the world, or deprive the world of sunshine.  
  
Today the guy who walked out of her life and made her realize life could be deprived AGAIN would be stepping in; for a day in the least. Kitty slid onto the counter stool and nodded to Harry for the usual. She felt like she was setting up a chess game that meant her heart to be the reward. She'd lost before. Illyana, Doug, even Rachel was gone now, and Pete.  
  
Pete. How do even compare your best friends, and the guy who showed you what real love was to anyone? None of them, none of the four of them even measured in comparison to the others.  
  
Doug had been a close friend and kindred spirit in computers and being yourself. He'd even had a crush on her when she was with Piotr.  
  
Illyana, Piotr's younger sister, still a sore thought. Illy, Yana, snowflake, her best of best friends. The person who had always known her the best in the whole world.  
  
Rachel was a close friend. Not like the others, and not exactly a best friend. Close enough to close friends, but far enough that the burn of separation from her wasn't like the hole Illyana's had left, or like Pete's that was just a gaping space consumed by a past without future.  
  
Pete. Handsome, messy, cynical, thoughtless; lover. A lover like you'd never had, he was nothing like Piotr. He showed the way that love was supposed to be. Careless, like sleeping entwined in each others arms till the rays of morning turned to the evening shadows. Easy and free, like it could be as simple as watching his face as he slept, because it made your heart light.  
  
Harry set down a cup of coffee next to her book on the counter where she sat and she stared at it a second. Maybe coffee wasn't a good thing to be drinking in excess anymore, or maybe at all. Kitty gave him a light and tired smile.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
He nodded with the friendly smile and sparkle of kindness in his eyes he offered everyone and went back to the register to ring up a leaving luncheon couple. Harry was a nice guy. He was a terrific cook and for that she came back. He gotten used to the coming and going of the students at Xavier's "Special School" as everyone else around these parts called it, but he didn't discriminate, treating them like favored nieces and nephews. For that she held a reserve of love and respect for him, not the cook, or the proprietor of a business, but Harry Morrel the man, who saw them as they were.  
  
People in general growing up in a world of hate and little hope or patience, and discrimination with few sanctuaries.  
  
Kitty left the book and coffee untouched, knowing she was early by atleast an hour, but getting herself to come was hard enough. As for how she felt, this had been the second morning of morning sickness. She set her face in hands, while her elbows rested on the bar top. Pregnant.  
  
I'm pregnant, and I feel alone.  
  
No one knew, and she felt like she was about to bare her soul without any trust in what could or would happen. Sure, she had a faith in Pete and what he would do, or she thought she did, but she seemed to be questioning everything suddenly. A child; was she ready to take on the care of a child? She was so brave and so terrified all at once and it felt like a war was waging inside her.  
  
Kitty wasn't sure who was winning. She wasn't even sure she got a choice in the matter.  
  
She brought her hands down from her face suddenly, sending her drink to tip. Reacting lightening quick without a moment's hesitation. She phased her hand right through it when it bumped the cup, and caught it seconds later. Her natural warnings of using her powers in public suddenly shot into effect. Her hand setting the coffee back straight now that it was solid she looked around, darting curious, momentary nervous glances.  
  
No one seemed to have noticed behind her. She looked around forward to see Harry watching her silently. Had he seen her? For a second she didn't move. Why had she done that? A simple coffee spill wouldn't have been terrible, and he and Molly had probably dealt with zillions of them working here. She was pleasantly surprised to see him still drying the platter in his hands, a calm, still free expression on his face.  
  
Harry smiled and the edges of his black mustache twitched up with the movement of his cheeks. An infectious smile coming from the man, she couldn't help but smile shyly at the man along with him. She was positive within a 5% doubt, that he had seen what she did, and he wasn't shocked or surprised. He nodded and walked away to the back again, as he took an order sheet back with him.  
  
Kitty looked at her watch. A short while now, and he'd be here. She slipped off the stool picking up the coffee cup and the book and looking for a nice table. The back booth seemed solitary enough, and quiet enough. She walked towards it thinking she must have been insane. She glided herself easily into the seat and situated herself leaving the coffee on the table still warm, but untouched, as she opened her book.  
  
~*~*~  
  
(Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program)  
  
She sat staring at the page with an oblivion of moments, not even seeing the type on the white page anymore. In fact she hardly saw the white page in front of her eyes anymore. What kind of world was this to bring a child into? One where a slip of power and it was enough to cause for paranoia? Where were the normal Sunday dinners, holding hands, supposed books with straps, and horseback riding lessons?  
  
Where was perfection in this world?  
  
Didn't children DESERVE perfection?  
  
"Pryde."  
  
The stiff word startled her out of her dour thought line, but not as much as looking up had. Because once she looked up, she'd seen what she'd run from seeing for weeks in a row now. She saw a gaunt face, clear blue eyes, with pensive expression, dark mussed hair and careless stubble and clothing.  
  
The six o'clock shadow in his presence, and the look in his eyes made her knees jelly. She was glad she was sitting, because standing no longer became possible. 'Stop, please, I'm over you. I am,' her hearted hammered from her chest. Her eyes pleaded silently, and she swallowed taking a quiet deep breath between barely parted light lips.  
  
I'm over you. I am. I am!!!  
  
Am I?  
  
"Pete," Kitty attempted softly in return and was surprised with how her voice shook leaving her mouth. She steadied her voice before it ended his name. It was terrible the way he could look for a the same way he might have months ago when he came to talk to her when she was working at her work station or watching TV. Smelling like cigarette's and looking like he'd just blown where ever the wind had come through howling.  
  
She closed her book setting it on the table a moment later, and nodded to the side, toward the other seat trying to grab the strength his presence was causing her to loose. She needed to be strong now, because he was here now. She *had* to tell him. Concentrate. Don't think about it. Just say it. One. Two. Three.  
  
"So, How've you been?"  
  
She wanted to smack herself and leaned back in her booth's side quietly. She couldn't say she'd asked him to fly all those miles, hours just to have a conversation about how he was doing after all these months. He deserved to know. He'd been part of the cause of this condition.  
  
Condition?  
  
It wasn't a condition-  
  
"Dandy," Pete said pulling out a lighter so he could start the cigarette he'd been holding since before he sat down. This had been a long day, it sounded and looked like it was going to get longer. He felt like the rest of the world was melting away. How do you become part of the world when the moment you get the smallest bearings a look deprives you of everything till the moment you walked away those months ago?  
  
It was the consequences of a night of perfection, like so many others.  
  
"Does this pla-" he started, but didn't even finish when he struck the lighter, and was stopped by a surprise of another kind. Kitty reached out suddenly and took his cigarette straight from between his lips without any reserve.  
  
It was a child.  
  
She tapped the cigarette on the table before she look up suddenly, a gaping abyss inside her filling with her doubts, fears and courage. Her eyes fastened on his, as he still looked put off as the flame from the liter disappeared, his hand still holding it in mid air.  
  
It was their child.  
  
"Pete, I'm pregnant."  
  
His hand with the liter went slowly to the table. It was like a video changed to slow motion. Had she just said what he thought he'd heard? Had he imagined the sentence that just left her mouth, like a dream or hallucination? He blinked, but she was still there staring at him with large solemn eyes like she was expecting something, anything.  
  
"What can I get for you two?"  
  
A voice broke their still moment, and they both glanced up at the cheery face of Molly, the ever-present waitress who worked at Harry's Hideaway. She had her short shoulder length blond hair pulled apart in two small pigtails making her look younger than her early thirties, late twenties. She wore the normal turquoise waiting dress, and white smock with sewn little flowers edging the pockets which were used to carry the orders, change, tips, and pens.  
  
Like delayed reaction he glanced back over at Kitty who seemed to be a tiny bit unpleased to be interrupted, but understanding. She was carrying? She'd just said something he wouldn't have imagined in a million years when he'd been on the plane being bother by the hippie chic, and now she had to wait even longer.  
  
Pete glanced at the folded menu at the end of the table but didn't touch it. He felt like his head was swimming. He wanted a drink. A double, on the rocks, add anything in as long as it's strong. Incredibly strong. Asking for one would be stupid thought, especially under these circumstance, and could insult or hurt Kitty. Fag. She'd probably have the write idea if he did order one for all this.  
  
His first reaction had been shock, surprisal. This was now every piece of what had reacted to seeing her falling to his toes. An ominous black cloud seemed to be hovering over his head. She had been the only girl he'd been able to envision himself marrying, having children with. Bloody hell. He'd lost his chance now. He sat back in his seat, shaking his head barely as he slipped the lighter in the pocket of the trench coat.  
  
"Noth'n f'r me."  
  
Kitty looked from Molly to Pete when he answered her, trying to figure out if the shock that shown on his face was now manifesting into annoyance by his expression. There were times when she'd never known what could be running through his head. This was a terrible time to be having another one. Her heart felt like it was being choked. She'd rather have him rejoice about it. Maybe she was right when she wanted to be wrong. Maybe he had moved on and had someone else.  
  
She wasn't sure where she found the voice, but she managed out seemingly not shaking, "One small basket of fries."  
  
Molly watched them both curiously while waiting, till they both responded. Someone would have to be dense not to feel the tension between these two. You probably couldn't even cut it with a knife. Her guess, either it was a break up or some big problem like a lie or an affair. But hey, It wasn't nice to get too involved with the customers that looked like they wanted, or seriously needed, space.  
  
"One basket of fries coming right up," she said and turned and walked away towards the open window where Harry would put the food for her to deliver out, and she would put the orders on the turn style rack.  
  
Both of them leaning back in the booths experienced a long period of silence, before they were looking at each other again. It seemed to be an open and closed thing, locked in a moment that was held in a an iron clad grip. The sentence couldn't be taken back and it divided them as it sat between them in the middle of the table repeating over and over in each of their ears.  
  
Kitty wasn't showing yet from what he could tell, and definitely wasn't like other girls he'd known. It wouldn't have just happened some night because of god knows what, so it must have still been within the first few months. She was dedicated, and she put her heart and soul into their relationship before they'd even approaching making love. So whose was it?  
  
"I'm not-" Kitty started up, but the look he gave her made her go silent. His hands curled around the edge of the table to fingers drummed off and on silently. What she wouldn't have given just to see him smile, to see him look cynical and say something. She wanted him to stop looking like he wasn't even effected. This quite, distant expression exactly like the ones from when she first met him.  
  
"F'r How long? Who else knows?"  
  
She barely managed not to frown, even thought inside she starting to want to cry. His voice sounded distant, but the objection of the question made her feel like she was in the beginning stages of being put on trial. She sucked it up thought for the second. She had asked him to fly a few zillion miles to meet her here without anymore explanation than a three minute 36 second phone call.  
  
"I've known since yesterday morning, just before I called you, and no one knows yet. No one except me, and you."  
  
Kitty didn't feel the need to mention that she was partially doubtful Hank or Logan might or might not know she was pregnant. She WANTED him to be the first she spoke to about it.  
  
His head was still spinning. She'd had a relationship with Piotr in her child hood, who she said had been like the first love syndrome. Everyone always said love never died especially your first love. That was the one you would have forever. Had they gotten back together? Was it is the Russians?  
  
"Th't 's nice an' all, but why'd ya br'ng me all this way? Unless," his words hinged on the 'unless' as if he'd realized some enlightenment of higher power. Why hadn't he thought of that before? No, it was too much time. Much, too much time. It couldn't be. Could it? Why else would she bring him this far out of the loop and not talk to him on the phone. It all made a completely no-sense-perfect sense. Pete focused his eyes on her again squarely, his words were a breath the silence of an 'almost' complain.  
  
"Kitty, who's the father?"  
  
"Pete," she said softly, like she might be addressing a tape recorded letter, except for the fact it sounded almost like a faint plea coming from her before she looked up at him. Katherine Pryde didn't plead with anyone. She had an expression that made him want to dash across to the other side and hold her, but she simply straightened herself. Her face was still half questioning, but he could see the strength summoned in her eyes. The beautiful, sensitive, brave ShadowCat they'd all grown to love in one way or another.  
  
"There was only ever you."  
  
Kitty watched his expression slip suddenly. A wave of relief seemed to wash across his features and he suddenly looked not so tense or rigid. She had no idea if ti was a good or bad thing as he was still looking at her silently again. His eyes had closed a second and then reopened and she wasn't sure if she should be happily waiting what would come next or cringing in anticipation. Unsure what to do her hand on one side was slowly phasing in and out of the seat in her nervousness.  
  
"Here it is!" The nice springy voice of Molly bombarded their conversation again, as she set the fries down in front of her. Pete looked from her to Molly, and from Molly back to her, and then back and forth a few moments longer. Kitty wasn't sure what to think at all anymore. She was tripping a line of shards of broken glass which belonged to their past.  
  
"Thanks, Molly."  
  
"Anytime, d-"  
  
"I've changed my mind," he stated suddenly, interrupting. Making Kitty and Molly both turned partially to look at him. He had a slightly relaxed expression as he looked up at Molly. It was an odd one thought. Like he'd stepped out of somewhere and suddenly he was passive. Almost happy?  
  
"I'd like a hamburg'r with everything on it, and a soda," Pete said before he looked over at Kitty again. He gave her an odd old smile, and she felt like she was being melted of her fears from her head down to her toes, especially once he tiling his head looking at her, indicating to her small basket of fries and said.  
  
"Yer sure you don't NEED anythin' more than those?"  
  
To Be Continued.... 


	4. Part IV

shackett@nctimes.net, winter_oak@yahoo.com, outsidethelines@topica.com, TangleToy@cs.com,  
  
(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 4/?  
  
  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is my first story the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To the wondrous Kielle is a terrific beta reader. To Luba for dedication char wise and wanting more story wise. But first and foremost, to Winter Oak and Tangle Toy for pushing me to finish this piece, hint at the goings on of it, beg and prod me at points to get me going and writing. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
The Greatest Miracle of All Part IV: "Don't Try and Tell Me You Even Care"  
  
"I DID IT!!!!!!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, as the gates to the mansion stood open and she drove straight in.  
  
Her bright brown eyes had a gleeful shine to them, and her hair flew behind her in ribbons due to the speed of the jeep beneath her legs. The strain in her legs could not even compare to the joy leaping from her inside chest. Rainbows raced across her skies, and the sun seemed brighter than normal.  
  
Kitty jumped from the jeep as she put it in park, yanking the keys out and grabbing one of her blue backpacks long straps. Going through the opposite door, passengers seat, and part of a wheel, she became solid again as her feet hit the ground. Sprinting for the middle and main entrance of the mansion, she bounded up the stairs in two long stride-jump-leaps, and phasing, went barreling straight through that door, too.  
  
She didn't stop in the hallway, as she was too excited now. She'd done it! She hadn't even been there long and she'd gotten it! She paused a moment later, stopping to think a second atleast. Mansion was oddly quiet, but there was music coming from her left. People were in the game room! She smiled freely, impishly, for that moment and dashed in the direction going straight to the room. Jotting out from a wall on the side, she offered enthusiastically again:  
  
"I did it!!!!!"  
  
Kitty looked left and right. The bar was closed up, and the couch empty. The virtual game system in the middle, the TV and the games system connect to it were all off. Slipping the backpack from her shoulder, she let her opposite hand catch it, standing by the wall, she let it slide to the floor. Classical music played softly but the room looked so bare she was surprised that a movie tumbleweed didn't blow on through.  
  
Where was everyone today? A mission? A call for help from one of the other teams? She attempted to not let her expression damper in the slightest. It was a lovely Saturday; she truly did hope no one had demands of 'World Saviors' for atleast a few more hours. Oh, well, the smile resurfaced bright as it had been, they could be in the upstairs Rec. Room.  
  
  
  
"Did what, Katya?"  
  
Kitty laughed softly as she spotted the large Russian man, surprised by the voice before she'd found the face, having been so sure she was alone in the room. He was coming from a back bathroom using what appeared to be wash cloth on his hands. The smile on her face lit her deep brown eyes on his state for the moment without hesitance, due to his face.  
  
In some ways Piotr would forever remind her of a young child. He wasn't immature, and the life of an X-man had changed him greatly. He wasn't as child-like as when he joined, even before her.but somehow, in a way she was beyond fathoming, he had kept that sparkle untouched and his youth unjaded. That innocence had transposed all age, time and situation. Looking at him now, she couldn't help a silly smile.  
  
"You've been painting." It was a statement, not a question, because he already gave himself away, or atleast the brown splash on his left cheek and the blue splash on the right side of his nose did.  
  
"Da," he said with a natural softness to his voice as the response was in Russian while he glanced back in the direction he'd come for a moment. If it wasn't for Kitty being multilingual and knowing Piotr tended to slip back and forth into his native language (as his sister and her late best friend had, too) it might have sounded like he said 'Duh'.  
  
That was another thing those who knew him knew he wouldn't do.  
  
"Can I see it?"  
  
"It's not...ready yet," Piotr said a bit uneasily as he finished working off most of the paint on his hands. At her curios expression, one eyebrow raised, he added, "It's new. A memory painting."  
  
"That's terrific! I hope it works out."  
  
He nodded as he finished wiping off his hand with the wet rag. She took time to realize it was a lazy day for him; she noticed that he seemed relaxed but not at rest, as if peacefully annoyed at something beyond her present fathoming. He wore jeans and a school shirt, his hair was getting longer. She wondered for a moment if she liked the idea of Piotr with longer hair.  
  
"What did you do?"  
  
"Hu-? Oh, that!" Kitty blinked and then smiled blindingly again, looking at him and taking a step back into the reality in the room, instead of thinking about one of the newer details around here, since there were a handful now. "There were second level try-outs for a performance the dance class I slid into is putting on and" she said triumphantly emphasizing her words and impulsively gave him a hug wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him with all her joy and feelings of triumph. " I MADE IT! I'm in!"  
  
"Congratulations," he said with an odd air as Kitty set herself down from hugging him. Not that he minded that part at all. They way her lips curled into her smile was radiant as if wasn't glowing enough already, her deep brown eye flashing. "Second try-outs?"  
  
"Today." She said with a nod, trying not get an impish expression, as she turned heading for the door. She didn't want to give away all her details yet. She wanted to tell Pete first, oddly enough, and the feeling she did gave the giddy "head in the clouds" sensation another boost.  
  
"I didn't want to get anyone too excited at the possibility 'til I knew for sure that i was in and now I am! The dates of the rehearsals and all information on what the preformed piece will be is to be given at an extra set class for all of us who got passed both sets of try-outs. I have to tell everyone now! Any messages i should tell for you?"  
  
"You should celebrate," Piotr said lightly, looking towards the leaving shadow of a girl. Kitty stopped a second to look at him and he wondered what his thoughts could be as his eyes seemed to have focused and been concentrating one something. "There's a new restaurant that features the works of new artist opened up a few miles into Salem, near Stevie's old Dance Studio."  
  
"I can't right now. Piotr, I'm--" the world stopped spinning as her stomach lurched as if to remind her, and she stopped, meeting his eyes. The same old curios, nervous schoolboy expression from her teenage years, so deeply intense, causing her hand resting, to grip, on the back of a couch. She couldn't bring the words out, her throat choking on them and swallowing them. "I have...some stuff to deal with."  
  
Grabbing her backpack again, Kitty dashed out, pushing off the queasy feeling in her stomach. It was just morning sickness she told herself over and over as she dashed towards the grand staircase. It felt like the moment before she'd ended it with Rigby. After giving him a chance when Pete had run off. It was the 'oh, no, I'm the only person who wants out of this' feeling. It was a hard pill telling Rigby, and with Pete here, and Piotr suddenly wanted.what? A relationship with her? Why didn't she just tell him like she started?  
  
I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. It's not like he and the rest of the mansion won't realize it soon. But isn't that just an excuse for a more persistent problem of liking? No.  
  
No, that wasn't it. That couldn't be it.  
  
She was going to tell Logan and Ororo first anyway. That was why she couldn't say it. That was it.  
  
It had to be.  
  
"Oh my, Stars and Garters!"  
  
She looked up at the same second realizing that without watching (as she could have walked this house blind) that she'd tried to go straight through the lovable blue fuzzball Hank. He looked a bit startled and she rubbed an arm barely, as she became partially solid. It was an odd feeling, almost like she'd had fur for a second.  
  
"I wasn't looking." Kitty said apologetically as she caught the melody of the music inside the game room again. Mozart's Seventh Symphony, if she wasn't off on her count. "Piotr's still in the game room. Where is everyone today?"  
  
"Rogue, and Remy are out on a picnic," he said straightening his spectacles. "Bobby's in the study, Sarah is downstairs, along with Kurt who's in the Gym, Elizabeth and Warren are still on their trip, Jean is in the study with the Nathan and I believe Logan and Ororo are in the seconds Receiving Room with our unexpected guest."  
  
Remy and Rogue on a picnic. That was good, maybe they were working out all those kinks in the relationship lately that all of the X-Men and immediate family of the X-Mansion had focused on tiptoeing around without talking about it. Bobby studying or reading a book? Maybe someone should check him for a temperature. Maybe she could stop by the gym after she found Logan and Ororo and do a warm down with Kurt.  
  
Jean and Nathan; together? That didn't boast well of good times. Not with what had obviously been left hanging between the two them. Anger, passion, regret, denial, hurt and loss. As a team they made up over a good ninety- five percent standing of the greatest telepathic people in the entire world. Against each other, they made war and holocaust seem incredibly light in comparison.  
  
Kudos to Warren and Betts and their cruise and little vacation in Jamaica. They had something good and they hadn't let anything stop them. They hadn't let distance or fear, or small doubts poison their...  
  
STOP IT, she commanded herself.  
  
"Unexpected guest?!?" Kitty barely whispered the question barely seconds after he'd replied.  
  
"Pete!" Her voice screeched a little bit louder than the first whisper, as the situation dawned -- or was it CRASHED? -- on her. He was being taken care of by Logan and Ororo -- Logan AND Ororo -- because he was an unexpected, undesignated and unrecorded visitor WITH an 'X-men team- member's' gate pass that enabled him onto the grounds without activating the security system!  
  
"Kitty," Hank started getting her to look up even though her thoughts were starting to drown his voice out. "I think we should talk about the test you- "  
  
The pass! A pass SHE had given him at lunch the day before yesterday when she'd told him! She'd forgotten to write it down or pass the message that she'd given a pass out. She'd been both too excited he was around and that she had her try-outs.  
  
"Hank, I can't!" She said turning and going down the hallway with her bag, calling back over her shoulder. "Later, I promise!"  
  
Kitty sprinted her way, her shoes sliding as she stopped, and her phasing causing her when she thought she might loose her balance, her phasing simply sent her half an inch through the floor. She moved into the doorway, but the part she caught made her both incensed emotionally, and she winced physically.  
  
"What does tha' have to do with it? Where's-" Pete being offensive, of course was the beginning of the part she saw. Was he ever not? It was an adorable quirk.  
  
"She didn't ask that, Bub, she asked where you got it."  
  
The small man with his loud of attitude was much shorter than Pete and far more in years. He wore a pair of deep blue ruggedly-worn jeans, a red patterned flannel shirt, and too-old cowboy hat. The greasy stains on his hands, jeans, and the under of one side of his chin told her he'd probably been in the garage lately.  
  
Hey, maybe her car was fixed.  
  
"Bloody hell!" Pete grumbled under his breath, and she could see he looked confused and on guard from the way he was standing, but like many of the men her life he wasn't about the give up so easily. Wasn't that what made them so damned lovable?  
  
"I'm sure you want to answer her." *SNIKT!*  
  
Logan may have been short, but he was his full height time atleast three for attitude. He gave aggression off like it could have been a smell or a color in the air around him. Any sane person realized no other normal person just popped out claws that long from the back of their hands and started threatening you like you were a foot tall from the ground.  
  
But then, that was Logan for you.  
  
"I can. I'll give you a clearer answer than he will, too," Kitty spoke up as she moved into the room, again leaving her bag by the door, towards the three of them in the middle of the room, not sure who's she was exactly talking to.  
  
"To begin with the security pass is mine."  
  
"We know that part, Kitten." The woman next to Logan was Storm, or was better known as Ororo to her. She had deep brown skin, a pair of sky-fresh blue eyes and a shocking amount of long pale white-silver hair. Today she was clad in a pair of cut off shorts three inches from her knees and a two- inch strap tank top. In her hands she still carried a par of gloves so she must have been gardening before having been called in. "What we're struggling to under-"  
  
"I can explain that part, too." Kitty cut her off, with an offered half- quirked attempt at a smile, as she moved near to Pete. "Pete, this is Logan and Ororo Monroe, otherwise known as Wolverine and Storm of the X-Men. Logan, Ororo, I'd like you to meet Pete Wisdom. He's an ally, and another member of the disbanded Excalibur team from Scotland."  
  
"This is..." Ororo's blue eyes had frosted white and widened so much that Kitty fought hard not to wince, and then turned speculative as if she was taking the boy apart in a much worse way than if he had simply stumbled into here by mistake.  
  
"Pete." Logan finished her sentence in a grunt all his own, as the claws sheathed his hand going behind his back. Weather anyone else noticed it or not, she heard the claws come out and sheath themselves again. A shudder ran through her insides, centering in her belly, and she found herself praying reverently.  
  
Lord, please hear me out! Get me through right now without any scenes, and I swear I'm going to do anything anyone asks of me in the next 24 hours that's good and just without complaining. I'll tear myself from downloading the new software or reading my book, and do dishes or take out trash. Just please, please, please, let us all leave this room in one piece.  
  
"Ruddy grand to meet ya, too," Pete groused with some semblance of a sour good humor more than outraged venom in his voice for being accused of sneaking on the grounds. He remembered them vaguely from Pryde's ramblings from the past.  
  
Neither of them looked too happy suddenly, that they had seconds ago. The man, if you could call that, had the look of an animal. It would have run a shiver down any normal man's spine. Pete Wisdom wasn't a normal man, but it did make him uncomfortable slightly. The woman much less so since she'd gotten his name. If he remembered, then she was the weather witch-- practically Kitty's mother?  
  
"I gave my pass to Pete, because," Kitty said taking their attention back to her, instead of letting them keep pulling the tension in the room tighter than it already was. She thought she knew how Logan and Ororo felt, they'd seen her sulk and become childish for the longest time. Honestly, it seemed she'd begun to wallow, much unlike any of her actions' prior to that day, when Pete had sailed away. It was like the Kitty who everyone had known and loved just vanished, and maybe she did. Maybe she wasn't there at Muir Island anymore or even with Excalibur.  
  
Maybe Katherine Pryde has sailed off on that same boat while her body had held a curtain, watching the light of her life vanish before her eyes while tears fell from them.  
  
"-because a situation arose," she said, trying to keep control of her tongue. This wasn't like running away from telling two other people for the reason they needed to know first. This was THEM. "And I called him, because- "  
  
AGGH! Listen to yourself, you're letting yourself begin to ramble! It's only Logan and Ororo. They'll understand! They will. They've always been there to help you thru whatever happens to you and they will again. They would. They should. Right?  
  
It was something she didn't want brought up though and it seemed inevitable. Something she didn't want him to know she's gone through, something that happened just because of her loss of him. She had fought her way back from that dark place to find herself, to put all the broken pieces together and move on. So far she'd done pretty good. She was finding sunshine again in places she'd once only seen shadows, and it was giving her a new look at the world.  
  
Kitty felt in a small hollow place inside her still he didn't *deserve* to know that it had been that bad.  
  
"Kitten?"  
  
The light seemed to shift, and she felt to hands settle on her arms, and she blinked to see Logan looked at her almost like he had an answer even though she hadn't asked a question. She felt fuzzy again, and she glanced to her side, noting the hands on her arms, and looked up at Pete confused who seemed as concerned as the others. It was an odd feeling suddenly, so comfortable, so right, to be this close to him.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"You started swaying," Ororo said coming forward to place her hand against Kitty's forehead. The Windriders fingers were cool against her skin, cool in a way Ororo was usually when she used her powers, even unintentionally. "Are you not feeling well?"  
  
"Sod," she mummered under her breath, but so close that Pete could hear and took a second to look at her. For the moment was only the graceful fall of her dark hair a few inches from his chin. She was still swearing, and here he'd wondered if she'd forgotten everything and gone back to being the normal, cute team member she'd portrayed so well when he first met her.  
  
"I---'m alright," Kitty said shortly, as she stood up, moving her back from against Pete's chest. She already felt like she'd touched enough electric outlets today, and been shocked. She wasn't ready for that one. Her stomach suddenly turned upside down, throwing a revolt on her body. She winced uncomfortably as small as she could make it.  
  
It wasn't morning, her thoughts groused. That was stupid. It was called Morning Sickness. It should *only* happen in the morning then. Not like this over and over during the day, each and every day till I...  
  
Kitty reaching her left hand, setting it lightly over Pete's hand on her right upper arm gently, as she looked at Ororo and Logan evenly. She felt two or three of Pete's fingers move to cover her hand, and she felt a boost of confidence and bravery enter her like a tiny trickling stream.  
  
"I'm pregnant."  
  
She half expected the world to stop turning, the planets producing oxygen, and that she'd simply blink her eyes and find herself waking up in her bed in the middle of the night. Kinda like that dream with Pete and the blonde bookstore guy. Now that was way more odd than this.  
  
She blinked, but all she heard was Ororo gasp suddenly, unable to control her reaction.  
  
Kitty thought for a second she might have heard a very light amused chortle from Wolverine. She glanced at him, but all he did was push his old beaten needs-to-be-put-to rest Stetson hat back and grin. It was almost as if he wasn't surprised. Had he known already?  
  
She looked back at Storm, holding her breath and hoping for the best. She wasn't sure she was going to get it with the sound that caught her ears suddenly. Rain was beginning to cascade the windows of the mansion. Plink, plink, plink, plop, plot.  
  
CRASH!  
  
There went the thunder, a bright flash showed the world there was thunder. It was surprising that the person it was all coming from looked too aloof to be connected to the terrifying display which was going on outside -- this storm that had appeared in the middle of a blue sky and warm perfect day.  
  
Ororo cast a glance over Kitty's shoulder to Pete standing there. It didn't take a genius to figure out what piece went where, and suddenly how the "why's" made sense. "Enraged" wasn't the word. ShadowCat was thinking of watching her eyes flash, and the nagging dread in her made her want to slide through the floor right now.  
  
She couldn't leave Pete to this though. It was their.....mistake? Responsibility? Joy? Gift to world? Child.  
  
It was their child.  
  
"Mayhaps, your guest should leave, Katherine."  
  
Kitty felt the urge to wince as Ororo began to speak. She knew she was about to get the badgering from hell. That made her angrier than she could have imagined. She wasn't a child to be chastised at her actions anymore!!!! Her fingers tightened over Pete's on her forearm, defensively.  
  
"Why? Anything that's said with effect to him, or, she faltered only a second before she forced the words, forced herself to talk. "O-ur child, he'll hear about, too."  
  
"I would speak to you alone," the African women said, as the rain behind them all on the windows battered the glass like a torrent of some hidden fury the world couldn't see. Her voice was tense, though, giving no one the chance to think she meant different. "Right no-"  
  
A clap of thunder and a crash of lightening all at once, were only broken in the room by the sudden ringing of a cellular phone.  
  
One small black one -- Pete pulled from his pocket and flipped back to look at the number. Damn. What does she want now? Did I forget something last time? If it was anyone else he would have left it ring until it stopped, but he took a step back from all three of them.  
  
"Wot do you want?" He said with an aggravated tone as Kitty turned to watch him, to heed the sound of the rain and the way his expression was changing. She was wondering who wanted him, of all those masses of "great dead friends" he had. What was he up to anyway?  
  
"He-You did wot? Bloody Hell," he breathed with an annoyed and commandeering frown. "Yes. I'll come, Rom'."  
  
Pete looked up to meet Kitty's eyes watching him. Concern mixed with confusion and wonder dancing hand in hand within the deep brown, making him wish he hadn't said those words, and also wishing that he didn't have to follow through with them. He had he only so long he wondered on this chance to try and even patch up whatever they had left? Was there anything more between them than word of pain, hurt and anger left unsaid?  
  
**Senior-Alumni Staff please report to the War Room** the comm. System suddenly through out and the words echo as if the room was made for the silence.  
  
Ororo started to move off coming towards her, before standing in front of her. She was afraid in the pit of her stomach, which was churning enough without that added strain, as she looked up silently without giving away any trace of that feeling.  
  
"We'll talk after the meeting."  
  
Kitty kept the gaze of the blue-eyed weather woman for a few moments before she simply nodded looking down. She felt ensensed and ashamed inside all at once, the feeling swirling coldly around her stomach and chest. She wasn't sure how many seconds passed or what happened till Logan put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
His hand squeezed it lightly, and she offered him an incredibly small half- smile. She wondered if he knew how she felt. Those experiences and long talks with him when she'd gotten drunk on his beer had been a new bonding moment for the both them since her return. He nodded, moving a lock of her hair, his blue eyes neither angry, nor chastising. Simply expectant.  
  
Moments later he was gone and all that was left were the sounds of rain on glass panes.  
  
"Pete?" she called softly as they left, even as it felt like a great divide had fallen between the both of them in the room. He looked like he'd actually gotten lost in his own thoughts because he hadn't moved from and the phone was still in his hand; closed.  
  
"The dirty, old coot just had a heart attack and he hasn't woken up." he said with an uncaring air, but Kitty could tell by looking at him that it had shaken him. In the back of her mind she remembered Romany telling her about him paying for his fathers bills for years, even while telling her she should look after him for him.  
  
"You better..." Kitty said softly, in a bare whisper. She met Pete's eyes from across the room, neither of them moving for a second, but both seeming to want to take the step to help each other and unable to. He slipped the phone in the pocket of his trench coat.  
  
"Pryde," he said, but she turned to the window closest to her, staring at the pelting rain as it struck the glass.  
  
"Go. Your father needs you." Kitty said hoarsely, but her words were more of an order than the plea screaming inside her not to leave. She wouldn't let him see that, not if he could even possibly read her as well as he had when they were together.  
  
Silence vanished into the room, and steps vanished away from her seconds later.  
  
She turned around to look at the room. It was easier to handle than the suddenly torn feeling which overwhelmed the inside of her chest as she dropped herself down on a couch. She picked up a pillow, falling back against another, hugging it to her tightly.  
  
That wasn't how she wanted any of it to go. At all. A harsh sight left between her lips, and she whispered softly to the room around her as she looked at the pillow in her arm fighting to urge to just punch it and pull it into pieces. She put above her with one hand punched it up into the air anyway.  
  
"I got the lead in Swan Lake."  
  
Somewhere in the back of her mind, and in the hollows of a memory not so well kept because of its turn out the jinxed words echoed in her mind as gentle as the torrent of rain outside, and sharp as the glass it pounded on, she remembered.  
  
'I was happy.'  
  
"Katya?"  
  
She stiffened at the name as she sat up looking over the back of the couch at Piotr standing in the doorway. She was thinking oddly for a second what was alike in her and him. 'Don't make any demands of me right now.'  
  
"Would you-"  
  
"No." Kitty said cutting him off. Personal talks were out of the consideration of conversation topics. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to go anywhere with anyone. She started phasing straight the couch, after she threw the pillow in her arms at another chair -hard- and through the floor in the first subbasement once she looked over at him again, with a lower sound and articulate level to her voice.  
  
"I promised I'd find Hank when this was over."  
  
To Be Continued? 


	5. Part V

lubakmetyk@worldnet.att.net, shackett@nctimes.net, winter_oak@yahoo.com, TangleToy@cs.com,  
  
(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 5/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is my first story the OTL so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Luba for dedication char wise and wanting more to the story. But first and foremost, to Winter Oak and Tangle Toy for pushing me to finish this piece, hint at the goings on of it, beg and prod me at points to get me going and writing. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
~*~*~  
  
The Greatest Miracle of All, Part V: "Just Like the Kids Do It"  
  
~*~*~  
  
She stood silently, tearing apart the flower, more grace and confusion in that simple action of picking the petals and tossing them at the water, than she could have found in any words within the whole of her vocabulary. The petal landed on the water after serenely twirling in the wind, to cause mirad ripples on the calm water, so vastly different from her own mind.  
  
Why were men so difficult and utterly confusing?  
  
"He loves me."  
  
Piotr Rasputina was a metal armored mutant and she was his Katya. The canvas came second after the X-Men, which seemed always to come first in their lives. He's had been shy and quiet, easy to confuse, overwhelm and embarrassed. She often wondered if being the more spontaneous and take charge person in the relationship was a power trip. She had thought she loved him, not that she didn't still, but it was more like a brother now, unlike the first pangs of puppy love. He'd simply opened up her heart, shown her -- in the end -- how much it could hurt.  
  
I abhorred the pain.  
  
"He loves me not."  
  
Douglas Ramsey was a computer genius and a mutant with the talent to speak any and every language. He was a best friend and a New Mutant, also. He'd been energetic, funny, loud and balanced out the teenage side of her that had wanted to act like a teenager during her first years at the Mansion, with the X-Men and with Piotr. He'd had a large crush on her but Piotr stood in the way. She couldn't keep from worrying when he got out to fighting; his heart simply wasn't in it.  
  
Mine is.  
  
"He loves me."  
  
Alistaire Stuart was brash, sarcastic, and smart. Smart and cute, he had that face of a man who never lost the college pretty boy look even once he'd sunk to hard work, and even while his hair receded. His smile was gentle and he was loyal to everyone he counted close and got involved with. Just him being around has broadened her with his situation. She liked him, and he couldn't take a moment away from hopelessly fawning over their teammate, Phoenix (II), AKA Rachel Summers.  
  
Being the one left out blows.  
  
"He loves me not."  
  
Lord Alasdhair Kinross, Laird of the Kinross Domain, cousin of the Princess turned Queen, Lilibet, and she was his 'accushla'. In all her life after and before him, no one had trusted her, believed in her or loved her so completely in such a short time, so assuredly. So noble, yet he was comfortable, and he saw deep into people. Who would ever thought she'd fall so fast in love with a man in a skirt, and then also have him ask to be his lady?  
  
I wish he were still here today.  
  
"He loves me."  
  
Peter Wisdom...Pete.scourge, rogue from Black Air, the mutant with fire knives from his fingers. Smart-ass, ice cold, drinker, flirt, smoker, swears, couldn't dress to save himself, cynical. handsome, loving and oh, so, stupidly, and adorably, stubborn. Danger was written on him like a bright neon blinking sign. He annoyed her so much, and she couldn't trust him worth a lick those first few times. Then suddenly in a burst of anger -- she WANTED him, and she almost blurted it out. Everything fell into place less than a week later and they were the newest, most exciting thing to hit Muir since 'sliced bread' as Rahne put it.  
  
Turned and ran, when I got honest..  
  
"He loves me not."  
  
Rigby Fallon was a lot of them it seemed, almost too real. He seemed perfect. He was her age, like Doug. He was a bit shy, curious, and unswervingly loyal like Piotr and Alasdhair. He was involved with S.H.E.I.L.D adding for the danger Piotr and Alistaire had. He was unlike her boyfriend, Pete at that point. He was pretty, lively and wanted to empress.  
  
He couldn't even handle the real me.  
  
"He loves me."  
  
Kitty tossed the white petal at the water angrily, and let out a huff from inside her lungs feeling like she hadn't been breathing the whole time she'd been out here in the Japanese Gardens behind Breakstone Lake thinking. Thinking only made the small hole she had thought to have rid her of hurt more.  
  
Ohhhhh, suffer him to England! She wouldn't care!  
  
"Hey, Kit? Ya still here wit' us, Sugah?"  
  
She blinked phasing suddenly even while she denied her impulse to jump back at the hand in her face waving back and forth. Rogue clad in her tight green uniform togs, hovered a small bit off the ground, next to her on the path by the small tiny pond.  
  
"'Ah believe we had a training session scheduled," the Southern Belle's voice sounded, and as she shook her beautiful shaggy brown hair from her shoulder's, crisp confidence to her voice which rested on confusion, and curiosity it seemed. At Kitty's eyes rounded and Rogue squinted a second thinking, and the opened her eyes all the way with a nod.  
  
"Round 'bout thirty minutes ago in tha' Danger Room." Kitty's mouth moved to form a small o, and to start an apology, but she hadn't finished yet, and went on. "But 'ah can understand with ya condition an' all if yer refrainin'."  
  
Suddenly her eyes went wide, at the surprisal of the Rogue knowing. She had only talked to Hank a few days ago and sure Logan and Ororo knew, but the whole house abuzz with her news already? No. Maybe. Well, they still had a resident telepath, and a another returning one soon.  
  
"Tha' house isn't half as big as ever'one makes it out ta be."  
  
"I'm fine, Rogue," Kitty said tightly, a bit defensively, holding the near destroyed flower by her side, as if to hide it from the woman with her body in the way. Her expression changed only seconds later to apologetic and annoyed with herself. She didn't want to start snapping at her friends. "I lost track of time. I'm ready whenever you are."  
  
"Twenty minutes. Danger Room," Rogue said tentatively as if to make sure for a second without asking if she was okay.  
  
She nodded, waving her off, with a smile that caused her to ache inside. " Have Logan or Remy bring a scraper, because they'll have to peel you off the floor once I'm through with you."  
  
Kitty watched Rogue, laughing, take off towards the house across Breakstone Lake, she let a breath leave her mouth that sounded akin to relief. With so much building up inside, punching her way at an indestructible object might be the only thing that could help. It'd be training, exercise, and a release from the pent up frustration.  
  
She pulled the flower in front of her look at it. One petal left on the now mauled small nature's beauty. She stared at it long and hard, before she threw it out and let the wind catch it, her eyes following the white petal till it and then stem landed in the water and caused ripples to mar the reflective perfection again. The petal.  
  
One petal left.  
  
One line left.  
  
The dismal sky of gray that had hung over much of Salem City rumbled lightly and Kitty pushed her hands into her pockets, and started off towards the boathouse first, with a mumble of chastising to her.  
  
"It doesn't mean anything. It's just a flower."  
  
Four steps on, she had slowed and glanced over her shoulder as the small Kao pond. It was again mostly still, the only ripples now left caused by the gales of wind. The petal and stem were gone, sunk beneath the cool water, she guessed. Her eyes stayed there a few long seconds not allowing her to look away and the wind blew her hair, and bangs about her face, blowing straight through her body, straight through the silent, dark hole inside her.  
  
Maybe he doesn't care at all.  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
"Aaaahhhhh!" a female voice cried out, her face drawn together cringing, as tears, beneath the hair, which had fallen over her face, began to leave her eyes and stream over her cheeks. The pain was excruciating, making her want to wretch and simply give up all together. What was there to hold on to?  
  
"Me," a male voice answered softly, with an aching clarity, and she felt the arm around her tighten silently in the darkness. She sobbed into his chest as she felt like someone was clawing their way through her, from the inside out. What hurt most was her head. It felt like it was going to explode. Simply detonate.  
  
"Kyyyy," the small hippie surfer girl mumbled into his arm, trying her best still to keep it from him, and to hang on to him with all her strength. The darkness was coming.  
  
The girl scream her anguish suddenly, then fell silent and limp within the strong masculine arms which held her. The man closed his eyes in the darkness of the room and all that could be heard was the softest muffled prayer for the woman in his arms.  
  
* * *  
  
Colors, swirling, flashing, dominated all that was her vision. Faces came and went. She didn't know any of them. Some of them didn't even look human. Was that possible? What was happening? Where was the pulsing, throbbing sound she could hear on the edge of her mind? And why was it there?  
  
Everything came to a halt, a blinding light meeting her eyes. She couldn't shield her face her arms felt too heavy, and so foreign to her. Like a limp noodle, she couldn't summon the strength to even move, as she screamed and ugly faces peered at her.  
  
They were pale skinned, with what looked like rows of preened deep black feathers on their heads. The eyes were dark, and had what looked like thin black line tattoo's surrounding them in odd directions and design. The one that hovered over her closest, sneering at her in disgust drove a shiver down her spine, causing her to try to move even more. The eyes, a woman's eyes, so full of rage, hate and anger, were all she could catch other than a dark purple metallic headdress of metal.  
  
"They're our children! You have NO right!"  
  
A man was shouting with a deep gruff voice, one that threatened. The words, so full of anger, trembling with a wave a fear, came from somewhere near by, but her head felt to heavy to lift. She waves her hands just barely at the edge of her peripheral vision, and she saw they were small...like a baby's.  
  
"I have every right. They are by right of the empire mine, as are you and your woman," another male voice broke into the first plea's confusing her hearing as she could see very little of what was going on. His voice was sarcastic  
  
"They are so beautiful," the dark, evil woman's voice hissed sadistically and she felt something like a talon or claw rounding her cheek. Suddenly she felt a gasp go through her lungs like it too supreme effort, and howled as a shock of pain ran through her cheeks flushing them, surprising herself even with the loudness of her shrieking wail.  
  
"Get AWAY from her, you bitch!" the first man bellowed again, and some sorta of struggled was all she could here. A shot sounded, but it didn't sound like a gun. It sounded like the laser gun from TV shows and movies, or maybe the "wump" nose the swords of Luke Skywalker and Vader made when fighting. The room fell tense and a thump, along with a scream broke the silence.  
  
"CATHERINE!!!!!! I'll kill you D'Ken!" the man was struggling against other people, the sounds of it met her ears. She'd heard it before too many times in her life, no matter how she hated it.  
  
"How the meek shall fall," the second mans voice laugh; was that the D'Ken, whatever or whoever it was?  
  
"Go." the mans voice commanded and foot steps underlied the heavy breathing to the first man. He wasn't moving, but other people were. More than just the woman, and they were gone then.  
  
"You can't escape, enjoy the few moments you have left."  
  
Then suddenly the man was gone with a rolling laugh the echoed behind him, and she was being moved. Someone arms were around her entire body. Was that possible? She was still blubbering. She could hear but she couldn't stop herself. Everything was so confusing, and it was beginning to hurt gain. The darkness was coming again.  
  
A face entered her vision. A man with brown hair, a mustache and betrayed, sorrowful, hurting eyes. He had tears falling down the sides of his cheeks, and into the crevices of his nostrils. They bunched on the top of his lip, dripping from there and his chin as he whispered the woman's name over and over. Another voice surfaced slowly, it was weak and full of pain.  
  
"Chris? Chris, shhh, don't cry. I'm here." a hand with blood on it raised to touch his cheek. It was thin and delicate from the fingers and down the wrist. Her voice was weak, too weak. His face turned in against her hand, kissing the fingers lightly.  
  
"We're still together," the woman said with a creeping slowness. The dark was creeping faster, but which one of them would I claim first. "That's all that matters."  
  
Suddenly she attempted movement again, flailing her arms, trying to get a look at the woman's face, as all she could see was the hand and the man's face. She was brought short by a pair of eyes barely open in a small face, less than a few moments old. They were purely white.  
  
* * *  
  
{Lee?}  
  
{Can you hear me?}  
  
{Lee, snap out of it please.}  
  
{You're scaring me. You do know that right?}  
  
{I'll swear off the cigarettes in the house, off everything completely, just please come back.}  
  
{I'll make you Irish Cream cappuccino, get you into the Pentagon and buy you a new lab top. Any color you want..}  
  
{Please, Lee. Please. You've never gone this far. Let me help you or take me with you. Remember? Hand in hand forever?}  
  
{Al -- always.together..} a second voice answered on the astral plane like a fading whisper finally as Kylie's eye lids began to flutter, opening to the dark room, her words forming only the softest whisper of confusion. "Mother?"  
  
"I kill you if you ever so much as think of doing that again," he said tenaciously as he hugged her close, and she could feel his fear of loosing her and helplessness that had flooded the room, like it was a tangible thing she could turn in her fingers. He wasn't sure if he'd let go anytime soon or loosen up till tears began to fall.  
  
He gathered her up in his arms, sitting on the bed leaning against the wall where he had for hours now. He burn the world down for her. She was all that ever had or would matter to his life, or his heart, in the end. Tears were starting to run down her cheeks like a fountain had burst forth.  
  
"Catherine..," Kylie barely let the word between her lips as she went sparatically into fits of sobbing against him, before she was yanking on a single dog chin around his neck, as he had no shirt on, only the jeans she was presently sitting on that were on him. "He called her Catherine."  
  
"It's alright, Lee. You're safe. Let it out, little angel," he said holding her close, letting her cry into his shoulder and not noticing the mirror few which sped down his face, while stroking her hair softly, even though he had yet to understand completely. All he knew was HIS angel was in shock, and she was all that was. "We'll call Mr. Nate and tell him in the morning."  
  
~*~*~*~  
  
She moved slowly, adjusting her thin wire glasses before she picked up the second cup. They were warm against her skin, and took away from her momentary notice of how her purple jacket bunched into little wrinkles when she moved. Her mind was in different places than her body though, as it was going through the motions.  
  
Job had been slow, an article here and there when she needed the cash, but nothing to test her metal at lately. All the freaks had gone off hibernating or were at a plot block.  
  
Walking back into the hallway from the small vendor room and to another room, she took in the silent sleeping form in the chair. His head was leaned back against the wall and his face looked passive, while his body was tense, with an imprinted expression of very quiet pain. She doubted anyone else ever really noticed it. Sometimes only blood could see the most obvious things that stood out.  
  
She kicked his foot, but not hard enough to seriously hurt him. He stirred and she nudged it again, not as hard but still with a kick, holding out a cup.  
  
"Wanted Scotch," Pete grumbled taking the cup, as he sat up, and moved the trench coat that was around him.  
  
"Your snoring bothered the nurse." She stately shot back, as she turned to look down the hallway peevishly from the door. "Doctors came back."  
  
Romany looked back at him half a minute later. He was staring at his coffee; his hand around it loose. She loved her little brother to death, but sometimes he bewildered and confused to her no end. She had not even the foggiest idea what was going through his mind at the moment.  
  
Their parents couldn't exactly be called role models for the perfect idols to act like. It wasn't a miracle either of them ended up the way they did. Mom was shot, Dad's got problems, and the children of the Wisdom family by default, or maybe even birth an' bloodlines got all the angst, problems and stress locked up inside of them tight.  
  
Neither said a word to the other, and long minutes passed. Romany sank into a chair, her loose clothes making a slight crinkling noise. She took a few long sips of her coffee, while she thoughts about the past. Pete had gone off to make a name, maybe find some pride away from them all, and she'd done the new age, occult thing long enough.  
  
Channeling was out, the whole Atlantean Priest gig died real fast, and was sickening and no fun to wake up after. He'd never let her live that down probably. Not that he'd turned out much better. Killing people for a price. Atleast she'd moved on to doing something sane, with a legal income.  
  
"I called her."  
  
"You-?" He sputtered swallowing the drink, which was still left in his mouth, answering where he been unwilling to answer earlier. "Don' you ever leave your nose ruddy well out of things?"  
  
"It's been two weeks, Pete!" she exclaimed with a touch of acid in her voice as she got up again, her blue eyes concerned, even as she sounded angry. In a way she was. He had so much standing right in front of him.  
  
A light breath came from beneath his teeth without a sound. Like he didn't know that! Days crawled by inchingly slow. Anytime he looked at a phone he had no idea what he'd say, and the one time he had called, the sound of the weather witch's voice was enough to drown the first thought, and the doctor saying his father had awoken making him go.  
  
And the one time she'd answered the phone he hadn't known what to say in the least. An apology for starters was due to her, but wouldn't come. He wasn't sure he could lie and say things were going okay either, and he wasn't sure he could explain it all sanely without lying. So he hadn't.  
  
"She's not like a book or a bottle. She's not going to just sit somewhere waiting for you to come back, and - you! - you have a responsibility now! Haven't you any idea what that means even?"  
  
Kitty was pregnant and had a whole house to support her, but the ache inside him wanted her with him, or even him with her wherever that meant being, because here alone was hell. And no matter how close Romany sat or stayed, he was always alone. His father lay on a bed in there, less than feet away from him, coming and going in consciousness, never any better physically or conversationally. And then there was news the doctors told them yesterday.  
  
Everything was choked up inside of him, but he'd be blasted if he'd get that way in a hospital, in front of Romany and a whole staff of who knows how bloody large number.  
  
Romany frowned as she crushed the empty cup in her hand, watching her brother. He wouldn't say anything, wouldn't do anything. It was like beating a brick wall, and not even leaving a mark, or making it notice you were there. It simply stood.  
  
"Hell. I was wrong. Maybe you don't deserve any of it," she swore; the rage inside her infuriated.  
  
Pete moved suddenly, standing up and leaving the cup, still half filled with coffee, on the table. He pulled the trench coat, black as his own mood, close around him and headed towards the door silently.  
  
"Where are you going?" Romany asked, her concern, dissolving most everything except her partially sharp tone.  
  
"Where I bloody well belong," he barely grunted as he passed by their fathers' bed without even stopping to do anything, or even acknowledge any kind of goodbye.  
  
Romany's teeth met inside her mouth, and she was only keeping herself from grinding them, over the fact her mind had things she shouldn't say outloud. He was being ignorant, belligerent. He was acting like a bleeding child and he had one he was ignoring!  
  
"Send the boys at the Crown my regards."  
  
She said, her voice laced with ice and hatred, it sounded so to her own ears, as she watched him walk towards the door. He seemed to hesitate in mid step, and she held her breath almost ready for the lash out, the one she would have deserved, but it never came. He just kept walking as if she hadn't said anything. 


	6. Part IV

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 6/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor comic book store worker. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. This is still the work of my very first story the OTL, even though it's among many of mine now, so I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Luba for dedication char wise and just for realizing yes, she can come tell me to write and produce more! But first and foremost, as always, to Winter Oak and Tangle Toy for pushing me to finish this piece, hint at the goings on of it, beg and prod me at points to get me going and writing. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
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Part VI: "Nice Try, Come Again Later"  
  
--------------  
  
To see her was to see a magician make white birds out of colored paper. She was magic. She was beauty defined in skin, and colored in beige's and dark browns. Did she realize how beautiful she looked? Did she realize she had captivated the audience watching her? The breath from every chest?  
  
No. She couldn't. She looks like she isn't even on this plain anymore.  
  
She has gone beyond them all. Just watch her. The way she moves. She doesn't even know anyone's watching. I doubt she even cares. She's got me, and it's like I've never seen her a day in my life, but I can see her soul shining in those movements.  
  
Dark, deadly, playful, then changing. She frolic's, she's in lust. Madness, there's anger, resentment, she's forgiving, she's teasing. She's fighting, she's wining. She's walking the edge of the dark and the light. Can they not see what she is doing right there in front of their eyes?  
  
She's making love to the music, giving it her heart -- her everything -- and capturing mine.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Spin, turn left, up, cross arms. Left arm out, balance down, follow over with right arm, land soft. It's a pillow, not a wooden floor. Turn right, arc arm, follow through with your entire body.  
  
You're not a tree, or blocks of cement, your body can m-o-v-e!  
  
Lift to toes, run jump, switch leap, land soft, tumble down, push up. Spin out, fall back, land splits, turn side ways, curl up. Hands up, arc circle, full body circles in front, limp, loose, and graceful.  
  
Your body is an instrument, play it. Go with it. Release all that's in your soul, and everything that's inhibiting you, weighing you to the ground, and making you solid. Flow. Fly. Dream.  
  
BUT ABOVE ALL, remember Stevie's words: Be one with the music, and the dance.  
  
--------------  
  
"You were marvelous! Stupendous!" Jennifer laughed as she tossed a towel at Kitty, who was breathing in a short rapid pattern as class ended. She was a thin, tall, Chinese girl, with long straight black hair and a flair for the extravagant in all her outfits and accessories she put together herself. For the first few times Kitty had seen her she'd had to restrain herself from grinning at the mental connection to Claudia Kishi in the Baby Sitter's Club books she read so many years ago when she was young.  
  
"Took the little upstart down a notch, did you?" Tessa threw in, as she walked out of the bathroom door in normal clothes still towel drying her blonde hair, from a shower just obviously taken. She was an extremely beautiful, weirdly quiet, yet wild, socialite snob, who'd only taken an interest in Kitty once she'd gotten the main part in Swan Lake.  
  
"She did! You should have seen her!" Amanda grinned as she was picking up her backpack and pulling out a set of car keys that jangled in her hand getting free. She had soft flowing brown hair that met the middle of her back, with bright blue eyes and a warm smile. "Showed that troupe girl we don't just let people take over on the day they show up, cause we've already got the best!"  
  
Kitty blushed a little, finding herself liking the complements getting thrown her way for something she loved, but she wasn't sure she felt comfortable with the down talking of the girl, even if she didn't like the circumstances surrounding her. Some things were just unfair. She'd worked her butt off to get picked and placed in the show, to have someone slide in on a one dance show, made her feel a bit slighted, but she was doing her best to keep it anywhere from near full fledge annoyance. Give it a class or two, and they'd probably be friends or acquaintances atleast.  
  
"See you guys in a few days. Toodles!" Amanda called leaving for the door and her two friends, Shea and Eric who were always came and waited for her, as Kitty patted off her face and neck avoiding a comment yet. She reached up to wave bye to all of them, as she'd gone out with that group a few times, and realized with her movement her limbs ached from the fury and frenzy she'd thrown into her steps when asked to perform.  
  
"Yeah, later, Manda." Tessa called after her, before going back to her make up which was now spread out on her lap.  
  
"Well, I'm glad you did. She needed taking down. Thinks she can fool everyone with that quiet, innocent act. Ha! I see right through her, I do! Thinks she can take the part of your understudy just because Madame Jezebel thinks she danced 'extraordinarily for a child of this modern age'."  
  
Jennifer laughed at Tessa's mock accent of their teacher and her words, before nudging Kitty's arm, while she was still putting on her jacket without changing.  
  
"Hey, I think that guy's watching you."  
  
Kitty looked up a bit surprised, as she zipped the bottom of her brown leather jacket an inch over black dance pants and her stomach thinking on her stage of pregnancy only a moment, before scanning the area only right in front of her not moving yet. There was something to surprises like that. Had someone seen her dancing maybe?  
  
A shiver of excitement ran up her spine as Tessa even looked up, and she straightened her jacket against the loose blue jeans she wore. "Who? Where?"  
  
"Over by in the doorway, behind you. Smoking, brooding, got the whole 'Woe and Darkness Is Me' thing going." Tessa commented looking more intrigued in a person than Kitty had thought she could get. Kitty was turning already as she followed her first words up with a hushed whisper. "Really nummy looking. Wonder if he's got a date tonight, or for the next few months."  
  
Her excitement leapt, dashed and leapt all in the same second as she landed eyes on the man in the doorway. Dark circles under the eyes, wrinkled clothes, expression like he couldn't care if the world was about to fall apart in front of his feet, fingertips curled in a strange tenderness around the cigarette in hand. Their eyes met, yet Kitty said nothing to anyone, even her thoughts seemed strangely silent.  
  
Jennifer nudge her shoulder, holding out a small gym bag that was sparkly blue with a silver printing that read 'Dazzler World Tour '87" with stars around it in a darker blue, and whispered. "Know him?"  
  
Kitty took the bag, slinging it over a shoulder, glancing at it a moment, before looking up at one of her closest dance friends nodding almost reluctantly. She wasn't sure if she was happier than she could imagine again, or infuriated beyond all holds of hell. The world definitely wasn't fair. Again.  
  
"Yeah." She said, letting a very small sigh slide. "Looks like my time is up. Tuesday?"  
  
Tessa nodded looking like she barely keeping herself from leaping on the subject. Little dancer, special schoolgirl, didn't seem so boring anymore it appeared. "Yeah, Tuesday. Don't be late this time. In fact, come early. I want details."  
  
She let a hand fall over her duffel, resting on it and walked towards the door, watching him take a drag on the cigarette, and expel it slowly, watching her approach. She stopped a foot from him, and looked at him expectantly, but he didn't offer anything up. Shifting her weight on the sandals she slipped on her feet from dancing bare foot and clearing her throat, she said like she might have to any guest visiting.  
  
"It's nice to see you again."  
  
"Damnit, Pryde," he muttered his words at her differential ones, as they came quicker than he could stop them, and he watched her copper eyes narrow. He could tell she was angry already, and this wasn't even the tip. He straightened, tossing the cigarette on the top step and stepped on it.  
  
"Logan said you'd need a ride home."  
  
"A taxi would have been fi-"  
  
"PETE??!!!!!" The voice was grabbled in thought for only 1.5 seconds, before some one ran head long into him, he stiffened in response about to throw the person on the ground but it had only taken another .5 seconds to realize he was being hugged. When the figure draped in a white unitard slim dancer costume stepped back he relinquished a startled expression to a degree.  
  
"Kylie?!" Pete was shocked, but it was wearing off. His glance shifting back to Kitty who suddenly looked like she'd swallowed the world whole.  
  
"I'll be in the car."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Kylie shifted uncomfortably taking a step back as the tall girl that she'd watched dancing, with the curly brown hair, walked out with a defiant air of confusion, annoyance, anger, hurt, even a touch of jealousy. Sometimes a gift could be a cruse.  
  
"Small world," she commented briefly before nodding to the door. "That was the girl?"  
  
Pete frowned, two seconds from cursing, but nodded, even more exhausted from his prior trip, and bewildered himself, knowing he should be going after her right at that second. He watched a man come and set his hands on Kylie's shoulders. He was tall, tanned just like her, except he seemed to be everything she wasn't. They looked like a matched set almost, standing there together, except in complete opposites.  
  
He bore a black trench coat, but a normal outfit under it of black jeans and shirt. His hair was almost the exact same color of hers. He wore a pair of pure black glasses, that his eyes couldn't be see behind, and his jaw was tight, except he seemed to relax just by touching her. She, too, relaxed curling back into his hands, pulling them down into her own below her chin.  
  
"Pete, this is Kyle. Kyle; Pete. We met on the plane."  
  
He nodded to the man, and his expression -this Kyle- shifted from a silent expectance to slow caution, his hands tightening on hers before releasing. The man might as well have staked his territory or stuck a property tag. Bloody hell, it wasn't like he wanted a piece of her. He was only standing here...as his one good act for the millenium, while he knew he should be the car, and wanted to go but was hesitant.  
  
Kylie didn't seem disturb she seemed to look suddenly like she was going to laugh, and a small smile darted across to and from the man lips, before she grinned at Pete when Kyle let go of her hands.  
  
"I've transferred from my dance Troupe in California to here, while we're in the city. They're really nice here so far. I may be part of their show as an extra since they set me as an under study."  
  
"It's hard to be in a new place." Kylie looked at him knowing he'd understand the words, and then out the door past him, forming a sign of blessing again, without sounding dismissive as she spoke.  
  
"See you around. Blessed Be, Pete."  
  
  
  
  
  
~*~*~  
  
She sat, trying her damndest not to fume, only getting angrier as she waited. Taxi would have been fine. She wanted to slug Logan for sending Pete. No, she didn't. She wanted to slug-  
  
WHERE in the hell had he been so long? Why hadn't he called to tell her something? Anything? Why was it only Romany who did?  
  
Kitty looked down and placed a hand over her jacket over her stomach. Her future looked unclear in the direction she wanted it to be clear. Sure, she'd passed college classes and exams, trained and proceeded to save the world, and kept it's itty, cute, little, round, blue, marble ass from going away each and every day, but this- Well, THIS was a baby. You couldn't compare it to any of that.  
  
A baby, Her baby, His baby. Like His and Hers towels. 'Funny. Almost.' her lips barely formed something between amusement and disgust, before she glanced in the rear view mirror at the three of them talking.  
  
Of all the people! She had to know him?!?! Hadn't she done enough today already?  
  
Kitty let out a mad and confused deep breath, through clenched teeth and tried to make her ultimately unwilling body relax. She leaned back against the passenger seat and closed her eyes, starting to count downward from five hundred.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Shutting the car door, he met Kitty's gaze, barely tanned cheek against the harshly threaded head cushion of the passenger seat silently, before she averted her brown eyes, annoyed and obviously hurt, down and then shifted to look out the window on the opposite side of her.  
  
Bloody hell. Well, you deserved that, didn't you? You don't wait three days from getting to her to leave again for two weeks, and then you don't even tell her what's going on.  
  
Was it his imagination or did she just mumble something about two hundred?  
  
Pete reached into the back between the two seats and up a gift bag covered in little teddy bears, rainbow colors, and pink cord handles. He thrust it on her lap, causing her to look up again. It appeared like she was half glaring of "You-Think-*This*-Will-Fix-It" before she looked down at the bag.  
  
Kitty untangled the handles from the knotted position as he started the car, deliberately not paying attention when he had trouble with the keys. Logan's jeep was his lady. You have to be gentle with a lady to get her to treat you right. Finally getting into the bag after moving tissue paper in pastel purple and pulling it out she got to a brown teddy bear holding a rose and a small white card.  
  
Oh, Great. Perfect. A teddy bear and a rose -a felt rose, none the less- was supposed to make it better? Men.  
  
She pulled the card out as looked up from the bag and out the front windshield as Pete was rolling the jeep. Thumbing the edge of the letter, and only looking at him barely with her peripheral vision she remarked quiet blandly.  
  
"Turn right."  
  
"W'ot?"  
  
"I said turn right."  
  
"The Mansion's left."  
  
"I said turn right," Kitty said starting to get an annoyed sound creeping into her tone, as the car went no where in an open turn out to the street.  
  
"Bloody-" Pete grumbled in the side of his mouth and turned the jeep right. "Where to?"  
  
"A store."  
  
"Care to be more specific, Pryde?"  
  
"Not really." She shot back as she opened the envelope, and started pulling out the card trying not to glare at the beagle puppy on the front of it. "Computer store."  
  
Kitty opened the card, first taking in the regimental card script in red, which had "Congratulations! It's a baby!". Then lower below in a quickly scrawled black ink, probably a felt tipped pen, were written the words:  
  
Congrats on the baby. Sorry this isn't longer but the ugly git has to catch his plane and I'm making him take this to you. I know he deserves what's coming to him, but be a bit gentle, too. My evil little brother deserves that, too.  
  
X and O's, Romany  
  
To Be Continued.. 


	7. Part VII

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 7/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
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Part VII: ".Before It's Too Late"  
  
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Kitty's head fell back, finally, and her body, sagged against the wall, sliding downward until she was resting on her haunches. Her shallow breaths came rapidly, filling the room with a wheezing sound. Head back, eyes squinting at the ceiling, she reached a hand up to wipe away the stringy, sweat-soaked bangs stuck to her forehead, and the world spun.  
  
Her throat constricted as she tried to take a deeper breath, and she coughed hard, rolling forward, her forehead toward her knees and the floor. A shard of pain ran through her chest, but her breathing did become deeper and more regular as the pain faded. She felt like there were little people playing a vicious game of hockey in her stomach.  
  
"Pryde?" a voice called faintly, from somewhere beyond the door. Pete? Why was Pete here? What time was it? All she remembered was it being bright in her room before she ran through everything in her way to here because she suddenly felt the urge overcoming her body. Again.  
  
She groaned and strove to move her head and body back to it's sitting position only to have her body suddenly thrust forward once more towards the toilet. Her back stiffened completely, in a way she found distinctly uncomfortable, and everything she wished never to see this close up suddenly became something she couldn't stop herself from losing once more.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Pete's footsteps fell soft as he rounded the next set of hallways. The only other sound than the rustle of his loose clothes as he took those steps was the hum of the energy running around him through light systems and air conditioners. The place was quiet. Almost eerie that way. Not in a spooky thing, more of trained instincts before even the hairs on the back of your neck rise. In a 'there are security cameras everywhere and the rooms are taped' way.  
  
That wouldn't have been surprising in the least. He remembered Kitty telling him about how well she kept the systems here -- as well as at Muir -- when she had the chance, and how others maintained them, too. She always sounded quite passionate about how impressive both were. He wasn't positive where they were, but he was betting there was a video log of his every visit, including his walk down each hall and turn since entering the house this time even.  
  
Maybe he should have listened better to that part. Listened to her words, instead of simply her voice because it had entranced him so. Or simply finding a way to occupy her pert mouth some other way.  
  
And even if it weren't for vaguely remembering Kitty's words of schematics and procedures, he expected it from almost any large corporate group running any business. The fact that they had so much technology, alien and otherwise, only reinforced the knowledge that they were probably on him like white on rice since the moment he came within fifty miles of the place.  
  
This time in his own car.  
  
That jeep was so damned finicky that, by the time he was done borrowing it, he was shocked no one had thought to throw the thing away. But then on a second thought, looking at Logan, seeing the way he'd watched him like a hawk asking for the keys to get Kitty, he wouldn't exactly want to be the one to tell him something he didn't want to hear.  
  
Not that he had apprehension about the small, solidly-built Canadian man, but the gleam in the man's eye and his changing demeanor on Pete's presence here, left Pete to wonder where the overwhelmingly fond affection in Kitty's voice when she talked about him came from.  
  
Stopping at the door to her bedroom, Pete experienced a feeling of oddness as he raised a hand to knock on the door. Long time past he would have been permitted to just open it and slip in, to even do that as quietly as he could to perhaps surprise her if she was busy lost in a book or a computer. He felt the another surge of the wave of desolation from small things like that that he'd let drown him after he'd run from Muir.  
  
Just the surge thought. Now all of that was just like waves rolling in at his feet. It wasn't terrible, but he wasn't drowning anymore either.  
  
And now he was here. Where the lithe figure that had haunted his sleep for the past few months would be prancing around in front of him with her new life, somehow bringing him back because there was now a child. Their child.  
  
No answer. He knocked again.  
  
The first night, after a shower and a few drinks, it had settle in his mind slowly, gradually sinking in. A baby. He'd never much considered having children. After what he'd been through in the last thirty or so years he wasn't sure what justification he had in his heart for bringing a child into the world at all.  
  
And then he started to think about it. A picture formed sloth-like. He recognized the lightest stirrings of hope for a girl. Think of it someone with tiny fingers and toes, wiggling and giggling, hopefully with her figure and eyes, deep and beautiful. Sometimes when he remembered it he thought it sounded nice, other time he just didn't let himself think at it.  
  
He still didn't even have the vaguest notion on whether she was keeping it, aborting, adopting it out, etc. He was sure of the things in the list he couldn't see her doing, but he also knew she had a hectic life with the Super-Hero gig she adored so much even if it came with the extra stress. Pete supposed it was something they would talk about soon enough.  
  
Where was she?  
  
"Pryde?"  
  
Pete knocked again -- two sharp, hurried raps -- called through the door, and waited, again, to no avail. He looked to the left and then to the right as his fingers closed over the cold, hard, metal doorknob. He turned it and opened the door slowly. Just in case. It wasn't like he'd see something he hadn't before, but there was space, time, and too many bad words between the Kitty and Pete that had been and the two that had now found themselves as parents to an unborn, unplanned child.  
  
The room was a half scattered clutter , while the other half impeccably empty. The cluttered and scattered side that was obviously Kitty's that he noted with dismay was lacking one brown haired computer goddess, too. His eyes scanned the room from the door. The bed rumpled, the contents of a backpack on the floor at the foot of a twin bed falling out from it to the floor.  
  
A blue brush with hair bands wrapped around the hand hold, a thick green text that looked like a college book, a black leotard rumpled up into a ball -- at least he thought it was -- a few smaller books, small computer bags containing chips and boards, a pen bag. His eyes traveled up from there to the hallway behind him, still deserted, and then back across the rumpled bed to a dark wood night stand.  
  
He walked towards it, noticing a glass of water on its side with clear water pooling by it, reflecting sunbeams from the window above it. He picked up the glass looking right and left to see if there was something to soak up the water with. There really wasn't anything near by, he noted sourly, as he looked around. The closest things near to him were a pillow, blanket, sheets, and on the other side of the bed a dirty clothes hamper.  
  
No tissues? No discarded shower towels?  
  
Looking around, a bright light caught his eye for a moment and he turned back to the dresser, surprised. He realized it was the back of a dual picture frame laid facing down. The back was a look alike black velvet and the edges were all embossed with a good bright copper or imitation gold as were the center hinges. Reaching out a hand to pick it up, he wondered what kind of people were in her life right now. Who was it she wanted to look at when going to sleep and waking up?  
  
"Snooping or actually looking for something?"  
  
Whirling around he found himself face to face with what he had been looking for earlier: Kitty Pryde, clad in a t-shirt, which struggled to cover, even half of her thigh. It was bright white and had a large X-emblem on it. A black circle, with a red X going over it, wrapped inside a yellow band. He though it might have been the shirt's brightness against her skin for a second before he knew it wasn't -- her hair was still tussled and unbrushed from sleep, but her face was pale with a slight sheen of sweat in places.  
  
"You look like hell. Are-"  
  
"Yes," Kitty said, walking in as she scratched a spot on the right side her stomach, making the shirt ripple and move across her leg. Her eyes arched at his statement reproachfully. "I'm a walking ray of merry sunshine, just bursting with joy about my newest symptom. Now if you don't mind I'd like to get dressed."  
  
Before he could respond, though, he watched both of her hands go to her stomach, and she seemed to drop a little like she was curling inward standing up, her face tightened, eyes clenching. Five very fast seconds later, her eyes were on him again though her arms still hung around her stomach, limp now. "Well?"  
  
"I'm goin'," Pete replied, though he was still watching her. She was experiencing morning sickness. He had to admit, watching her he had no idea at all yet what he was getting himself into still, except now that it made her sick, too.  
  
"Close the door on your way out," she breathed as he walked past her and she didn't look over at him. She didn't even move from the spot until the click of the door shutting happened and she released a deep breath from inside her chest. It must have been in there just waiting since the moment she'd found him in her room. Going toward where he was, she tried to figure out what he'd been doing.  
  
The water glass was tipped and she wondered if she'd done that in her rush to the bathroom. She did have to admit morning sick sucked as a side effect. Being sick for a few days was one thing. This was supposed to last for months.  
  
Cup, spilled water that would dry.she had no worries, having done it before, lamp, clock and.  
  
Her insides froze. Was that what he'd been looking at? All but trembling, Kitty reached out a hand and picked up the dual picture frame, turning it over in her hands. Deep brown eyes, still watery from before, saddened staring at the two pictures in the frame. Holding it in her left hand under the hinges she reached out a finger to stroke the side of the face of one. One was a sister in all but blood, the other a past lover.  
  
Until a few weeks ago she'd lost them both from her life for good. There was still no guarantee now that she hadn't. Closing it up, she opened the drawer in her nightstand and slipped it inside. Removing it from her mind almost as simply as she removed the shirt from herself she locked those thoughts away and steeled herself to produce some kind of strength and endurance to make it through this day.  
  
Minutes later the door opened and she was walking out. A loose fitting tank in blue, nice fitting dark blue jeans, boots with a heel under them, and a pair of black sunglasses presently holding back her hair. Her demeanor was more resigned and calm, except for the look in her eyes. Those copper brown eyes, which seemed to hold a melancholy, met his eyes and looked away as she joined him in the hallway.  
  
"Where are you taking me?" Kitty asked, not smothering the note of irritation it conveyed openly, as she glanced at him and adjusted the shoulder strap to a bag on her back. He'd said he had somewhere important to take her this morning, though it wasn't early, it sure felt like it to her. Her sleep patterns seemed all weird now. Weirder than normal.  
  
"It's a su'prise," he said as he started walking down the hallway away from her room toward the grand staircase, expecting her to follow.  
  
"Is it going to be as exciting as my last surprise?"  
  
Lighting a cigarette he looked over his shoulder at the way she walked behind him, somewhere between a sulk and rigid acceptance of doom. "C'mon, Pryde. It won't kill you."  
  
Trudging her way outside behind the man wearing a trench coat and surrounded by curling smoke, she tried to remind herself it was a new day and glorious things could happen on a new day. So far it wasn't working one bit. The sky she might have considered incredibly bright and beautiful she scowled at being glaringly bright.  
  
Then, once further outside, the sky wasn't nearly as glaring as the car that now sat before her out in the half circle drive way. Kitty blinked at it and her left hand on the strap over her right shoulder tightened. It was appalling. To call it glaring being incredibly, angelically, nice. It was. She couldn't even finish the thought, raising her left hand from the strap to her lips, trying to hold back laugh. It ended up as a smirk that wouldn't go away as she walked towards the passenger side.  
  
"Nice rental car."  
  
"Isn't it? Talked h'm into letting me have it for longer then normal." Pete's words barely made it out before he shut the driver side door and got into the car.  
  
A short laugh slipped past her lips before she opened her door. Getting into the car she couldn't help but keep the half smile, even when she dropped the backpack between her legs in the space in front of the passenger seat. Only Pete could sound like he'd just gotten a Porsche when he was getting into the driver seat of a gold painted Pinto.  
  
"So are you going to tell me anything about this mystery place you're taking me to?" Kitty asked, pulling her seat belt on, and going to mess with the radio controls already, even as one of Pete's hand came out to bat hers away.  
  
"Not a bit. It's a s'rprise so you'll have to deal till you get there," He with a faint curl at the sides of his lips, starting the car as he finally, silently gave into the fact she'd end up in some control of this music in the car.  
  
"Okay, so no details," she replied and stared out the front window as they left the mansions grounds. A few turns and they were out on the streets. Looking at the radio as she spoke, she flashed through the seek looking for something more interesting. "How's your father doing? Romany didn't tell me many details about how everything was going when she called."  
  
Pete tried to ignore the tone in her voice that sounded slightly pained and angered at the fact his sister had called and he hadn't by rolling down the window so the smoke wouldn't box the car. "The gits in a hospital with what Romany calls the best," his tone belayed disgust in these people she didn't know anything about. "They're sayin' he'll be in there a bit longer. Not strong enough t' leave."  
  
"Oh," she said softly, changing buttons again, and casting a glance at his face out of the corner of her eyes. His face was rigid, and the simple way it seemed tight, and his eyes darker, she wondered if he ever realized he was afraid for the man he claimed to hate. He loved his father, even though he'd never admit it. "I hope his recovery comes along fast."  
  
Feels like I'm gonna drown in this strange town Feel broke down Feel broke down  
  
"They're not hopeful." Pete replied even more dryly this time, and Kitty settled into her seat again, feeling a touch of regret. "S' why Romany..why I came back yesterday. Won't do no good-"  
  
Do you still want me Like I want you  
  
"Stalking the hospital and glowering at the staff?" Kitty said quickly, interrupting his words.  
  
Or am I standing still Beneath a darkened sky  
  
Ginning when her words earned her a semi dark glare, but with his eyes touched with amusement, she sat back and replied a second later, trying to figure out what was pulling at the edge of her mind. "It's a good thing she sent you back, before-" She stopped suddenly realizing the words in the song and felt even more uncomfortable, while trying not to let it show.  
  
Or am I standing still With the scenery flying by  
  
"Before?" His words intruded on the words. Hard and rough, against a female voice that was gentle and soft. Something too real about the words. Something that seemed a touch dangerous and concerned in his voice.  
  
Or am I standing still Out of the corner of my eye Was that you passing me by  
  
Kitty was looking out the window now. The world rolling by her window was the world she'd know for half of her life, the more important part of it. She could close her eyes and imagine every turn, every hole in the road, the places you could drive fastest, and the pits never to not drive cautiously through. It was a life of ease, and a life she knew like the back of her hand. It wasn't dangerous or unknown.  
  
Sweet sorrow - He said call tomorrow Sweet sorrow - He said call tomorrow  
  
"Before it was too late."  
  
Do you love me Like I love you Or am I standing still  
  
to be continued  
  
** Standing Still..Jewel's new CD: This Way 


	8. Part VIII

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 8/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
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Part VII: "In Another's Eyes"  
  
--------------  
  
In a mansion the size of Xavier's Institute of High Learning it was easy to not be seen while watching someone. At the same time to feel that eyes were upon you and to look up and see no one since there was so much house to be looked at when you looked up for the eyes watching you. He hadn't persay meant to be watching them as they left.  
  
He'd been emerced in his work since very early morning, after eating a breakfast laid out by one of the wonderful women of the senior staff and hadn't looked up untill now. He'd had music on to keep the sounds of the outside world at bay. Three CD's sat in a spinner, all classical music meant to keep him calm and occupy his thoughts while he worked, without taking his mind from his work.  
  
But the music had stopped temporarily, while second CD was switching to the third, when he was interrupted by sounds front outside, from the window a crack open to give him fresh morning air. Voices pulling him from bright colors and easy movements, until he was leaving his and walking over to the window, staring down at them. A golden colored car glinted in the sunlight below and two figures were getting into a car; Kitty and Pete.  
  
Watching silently as the woman with brunette hair laughed and smiled while the other door -- the drive's side -- closed, he frowned slowly. She said something opening her door, then got in, and half a minute later the car was leaving the half moon driveway. His frown didn't fade very fast from his face as he wandered back over to his easel.  
  
The picture was coming along nicely, but he knew his concentration was shot for this morning. Now thoughts started to crowd his already tremulous mind. The face was the way he remembered it in his mind, as were the eyes. The eyes that had changed so much with time. They had looked so different the first time he'd seen them. He hoped that they came across that way when other people would look at them, too.  
  
While he used a wet rag to wipe his hands off -- the fingertips, in particular, covered in paint -- he looked toward the window he'd been looking out just a moment ago. She was laughing and smiling with that rat who'd left her. Of course he knew why; the entire mansion knew why Pete Wisdom had stepped back into their lives. Before the end of Excalibur, before he'd left her all alone, he'd gotten her pregnant and it had taken all parties involved this long to figure it out and be dragged back into the same area again.  
  
Piotr still wasn't sure what he thought about all that. He was surprised that she hadn't told him but he understood -- or at least thought he did -- and made an effort to be there if she needed anyone. His second reaction was that he though to beat Pete Wisdom to a bloody pulp -- on purpose this time -- if he didn't do right and stand beside whatever decision she made.  
  
Kitty Pryde had gone through enough in the last three months. One had only to think about it to remember walking down that hallway and being able to hear her in room, or in a computer room, crying, all alone, not allowing anyone to help her. And then, slowly, she did. First Logan, and then slowly the rest of the X-men, and they all watched her come alive again little by little, like someone in a coma waking up.  
  
Now the very reason for all of that was staying in a room in a hotel twenty miles from here, because no one had offered him a room in the mansion. Not even Katya. There were still grudges being held by many of the residents in the mansion for his immediately running off for two weeks after being told Kitty's situation, not even calling during that time and just showing up on the door step again. He had to admit he was one of them.  
  
Excalibur had dealt with similar things like that happening, but this was different: he had a responsibility. A responsibility to both the child and Kitty now. Kitty'd been put through enough, she didn't need another heart break on top of a one just finished. She'd been left enough and had lost enough people already in her life. He had been one of them, so had Wisdom. Both of those had been things of the past until now. Until this pregnancy dredged up Pete Wisdom from England and brought him back into all their lives.  
  
Yes, all their lives, as it seemed Katya wouldn't be giving up her child, a thought that both worried and relieved at the same time all those who cared about her. If Pete knew what was good for him this was now going to involve months of him here, since she'd made no mention of wanting to leave the mansion. She'd actually told Ororo she wanted to be here during it because this was home and she wanted to be surrounded by those who were family.  
  
He pushed it out of his mind as he picked up all the paint brushes that landed in odd places while he'd been working, and added them to the ones that had landed neatly in the water cup. The water inside the cup was a shade of grayish black, like tar might be if you mixed a acrylic white and peach in it or like oil without the shiny tiny and slimy feel to it. The brushes ranged in sizes, special made for different uses, and though most of them were the same light brown wood color, there were a few that varied.  
  
Washing them off, he laid them on a paper towel next to the sink and continued on to wash his hands and his face, where paint always got to somehow, untill everything was clean of any trace of painting again. Turning off the faucet and the light, he backed out of the small room. But before he had the time to wonder what he should be doing her stomach grumbled angrily. He took a look at the clock, brushing his pony tail over his shoulder absently from where it had fallen in front.  
  
Nearly lunchtime now and food did sound appealing.  
  
~*~*~  
  
{Penny for your thoughts?}  
  
{I am worried.} The woman replied as she moved slowly through the kitchen, without bumping into her friend. There had been a long silence before she had answered the question and it was a wonder she did. She had been keeping mostly silent on this debacle so far, which was why she added the second half of the thought. {As if everyone and it doesn't help her at all.}  
  
{You don't think your love and affection are helping her right now?} Her friend replied with a quirk of a smile touching her face, from where she sat in a chair at the table in the center of the room. She wore a simple outfit of a pair of jeans and a button up white shirt, that had been partially left unbuttoned. On the edge of a pocket could be seen her combadge, though she didn't need it with her powers. She could have alerted her team by a more subtle way -- telepathy, just the same way this conversation was taking place.  
  
{I know they do, Jean, but she's not looking for them. In family faces she only seeks to find that which says we don't want the father of her child here, or, worse, that we harbor disappointment in her past actions and present choices.}  
  
{Then wait for her to turn to you in need, Ororo. She'll come around. She always does.}  
  
Ororo thought this was true. Kitty was one of the many people who lived in the Mansion who walled up her true feelings and showed people what she thought they should see. Not what they wanted to see, or what they truly needed to see. Just what she thought they should see.  
  
She'd been living behind a wall like that all those months while the X-Men waited for her to come out. And of course, eventually, she had --with the same fire and flare as normal, the youthful exuberance and teasing wit.  
  
Then in one morning, it was gone, again, replaced by an irritability and listlessness. Many people had tried to guess what was to blame, with guesses ranging from Pete -- again -- to missing having her own team in her own world as it had been her home for many years. It got worse from there, and no one had known why or how, until that Mansion had been shaken to the ground by a large thunderstorm.  
  
Her pregnancy was more of a bewildering shock than anything else. No one -no one- had expected it.  
  
{I will.} She said softly into her best friend's mind and, as if to make sure she would, she said it softly to herself, a very faint whisper before she placed a dish in the dishwasher. "I will. I will -- for her."  
  
Then as if changing the subject slowly, she looked at Jean and asked. "How are you feeling today?"  
  
{Penny for my thoughts?} The voice wasn't as sweet as it had been. It was held back now and Ororo wondered if that was the exact reason it hadn't been said outloud, but the thought was broken when a response was finally voiced.  
  
"You mean now that the Professor is gone and Scott is dead?"  
  
Jean's voice was hollow on one end and malice filled at the other, and her expression ranged from disgust to sadness. She had set her chin on her hand and was staring at the frigerator to her side, very hard. It was one of those looks where you'd use the 'if looks could kill' expression, and the existence of it made Ororo wince.  
  
All of the X-Men had their own daemons right now.  
  
"He's alive, Ororo," she said softly, and her friend looked back to see her staring at the table in front of her for the moment. "He is. If he was dead I'd know it. In my heart, in my soul....I'd know he was gone." Jean raised her eyes to meet Ororo's, her hands tightening on the table slightly.  
  
"But he's not-" she moved her chair out, getting up from it. "He's alive and the Professor is wrong. He's alive."  
  
Listening to the sound of Jean's voice made a chill run down the weather witches spine. It was like listening to someone slowly lose it. Her voice was filled with this insane sound that said she had to be right and no one else could be, because they were wrong. She'd been like this since their return from the battle when they'd figured out the meaning of The Twelve. The battle where Scott had sacrificed himself.  
  
He was an emblem for the X-Men. He was someone those to come would look up to, would base their lives as X-Men on. He would be a role model and to some an idol of what being an X-Men truly meant.  
  
To them he would be Scott Summers. But to those here now he would be father, husband, team mate and most of all, friend, and beyond that even, family.  
  
The door to the kitchen swung open and Piotr walked in, looking at the silent scene -- Ororo near the sink and Jean standing with her back to him staring at Ororo -- and he wondering if he'd come in at the wrong time. There were other places in the mansion where he could get food if he wanted or needed it.  
  
Of the three it was Ororo who reacted fastest though. Her gaze shifted to Jean and then back to Piotr as she asked simply, "How's your painting coming?"  
  
"It's good so far -- I've almost captured exactly what I wanted," he replied. His voice was fatigued, one of the two women in the room noticed. "And after getting interrupted once or twice, I thought it might be good to take a break."  
  
"Interrupted?" Jean asked, raising an eyebrow. That was curious, since the entire mansion was mostly empty at the moment -- either out or busy.  
  
"Da." Piotr looked momentarily unsure, and his mouth closed so that it look like he might not say another word. "Once by Katya and Pete leaving, and a second time when Sara asked to borrow a book."  
  
"Which book?"  
  
"She's already left?"  
  
Both questions came at once and Piotr felt obliged to answer since he'd started it, even though he felt he'd rather tackle the debate about the book Marrow had borrowed, rather than spawn another discussion about the fact Pete Wisdom had taken Kitty out of the house. There were many conversations about that going on that stopped and started spontaneously from the smallest things.  
  
"An art book covering startling art in the eighteenth and ninetieth century," he answered Jean's curious expression before looking at Ororo as she pulled a glass down from a shelf -- for tea, he guessed, as it was what she drank most. "And Katya left about twenty minutes ago, though I don't know to where."  
  
"It's na our business wher' she's goin'." A gruff voice came from behind Piotr who'd literally jumped with surprise, an interesting sight for a man so large; it was Logan. Clad in his normal attire of blue jeans and a shirt with buttons and short sleeves, if they hadn't known him better one would have thought he was in the mood for a brawl the way he looked.  
  
The comment stifled any response from Piotr, and Jean just sat down in her chair again, pulling it in with her, since she didn't have a comment. Ororo, who was about the fact that they'd just left without telling anyone anything, did say something even as he stalked the kitchen and open the fridge.  
  
"You're not worried about her?"  
  
Shutting the frigerator, a cold beer in his hand now, he looked at the weather witch, their eyes at two very different heights -- two people who could look very terrifying at other times, while the other two looked on. He popped the tab of the can and everyone could hear the fizz in the silence before he answered.  
  
"She's a' big girl an' can handle her own problems, But if he h'rts her 'gain," he said taking a sip and heading for the door, but it wasn't in anyone's imagination that he opened the door, heading out and followed it up with, "I'll kill 'im.  
  
to be continued 


	9. Part IX

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 9/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to make me want to write more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
And, of course, dedicated to Terry Moore and my second largest obsession behind Jean.  
  
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Part VII: "Do You Know a Stranger in Paradise When You See One?"  
  
--------------  
  
"Quack! Quack! Quack, yourself! I haven't anymore!" She said laughing, as she threw the last part of the crust of bread to the ducks about a foot from her. She only had a few near her right now, picking at the ground, making sure, and then looking up and quacking at her, as if in disbelief or as if they were pleading.  
  
"Okay! Okay! One more!" Producing another piece of bread from her pocket, still smiling brightly she started throwing little pieces to the ducks and laughed, watching them dive for pieces and turn to look at her. "I missed you, too!"  
  
He'd been standing there a while. Just about five steps from the built in bathrooms that most people would agree were an offense to society. Pete Wisdom on the other hand, didn't mind them; he'd even done his business in a lots of worse places than a packed wall, that actually had toilets, even if it smelled like crap. Had he ever done it worse places, places that would make this aforementioned hellhole of a bathroom look like a five star.  
  
He had meant to walk out and stand with her, but he'd been struck, by surprise, into just watching her. Here she was, this person he'd come a dozen hours or so on a plane because she'd said "it was important" without any other explanation, running around, laughing like a child, while ducks chased her. She didn't look at all what Pete would have wished.  
  
What did he wish though? That she'd be so heartbroken her life would have completely stopped and that once he appeared again, her life would suddenly be on the right track and the world would have sunshine suddenly since he was there? The world would have sun- where the hell did that come from? No, of course, he didn't wish that, and that would never happen.  
  
She was Katherine Pryde, nicknamed Kitty, though not be mistaken as being gentle, naïve, and innocent, which the name sometimes seemed by comparison. Once a long time ago his "Pryde". She wasn't anyone to sit by and let the world go on without her. She'd probably recovered masses of times faster than he had from their break up. Just looking at her, joy and smiles, it made an ache inside his chest surface.  
  
And she accomplished amazing feats against all odds. I mean, most of all, hell, she'd turned him around, hadn't she?  
  
Joined up with Interpol, who were supposedly the good guys, till you go through enough it doesn't matter who's the good guy or the bad guy. It was just about who could kill whom faster, in larger masses, before the other person(s) would suspect. It was sickening, like taking over the task of keeping Big Brother from being born. Except in their infinite quest they had simply become Big Bother, an infection inside a body that soon took it over, and even one thought of cleansing it was enough to put you on the other side.  
  
And then this girl, with such a bright enthusiasm, sharp wit -- and temper, at times -- had come along and grabbed his hand. She'd dragged him away from the people who had promised him no more, that he was out of it, and took him straight into the line of fire. She made him understand, along with her colleagues, what true goodness was and she did that....  
  
....through her love.  
  
He couldn't stop the smile that formed as she ran around two ducks coming after her, untill she was right at the waters edge. And then she was a foot in the water and her feet were phased. He could see the faint difference between where she was solid and where she wasn't, then, with a glance around shortly, saw that no one else could.  
  
"You can't have it!"  
  
She was laughing and holding her peanut bag away, as he started down toward her. Just as she was about to fall backwards, spurned back by a duck, he dashed out and grabbed her hand. Water splashed his shoes and the bottoms of his pant legs. She laughed and walked forward with him out of the edge of the pond, glancing at him, her cheeks still flushed, her smile still bright, holding out the peanut bag.  
  
"Maybe *you* can. So long as you don't die, clutching it in a box, whispering my name as your last dying breath"  
  
"Cute, Pryde," Pete said, the curling at the edges of his lips the only hint of his amusement while he looked at his pants legs and shoes dripping water.  
  
"I am, aren't I?" Kitty replied to him with a residual laugh existing, as she looked at the pond and the ducks that were swimming to the other side where another girl was feeding a group. She was a brunette who, though a little overweight, had an animated face that made you want to smile at her. Another girl, this one with short blond hair and a leather jacket, seemed to be talking to her.  
  
She was facing the wrong direction for Kitty to get a look at her face, and a guy had showed up, carrying tamales. He was taller than both, lean and helpful looking, with dark eyes and hair. Smiling she turned as Pete spoke again of something in what she'd been watching.  
  
Cute. Adorable. Attractive. Fair. Comely. Good-looking. Lovely. Pretty. Alluring. Appealing. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning. Sexy. Captivating. Enticing. Entrancing. All things an answer to a question she hadn't asked. She was kidding, her tone said so, and he pushed the thought away, even as one last word came before he could dislodge it from his mind. Heart breaking.  
  
"Do you want a tamale?"  
  
"I'll wait for lunch. Stomach's a little woozy still," Kitty said with a smile, as she turned to face him and held out a hand, trying to still her gut and heart, and have some courage. "A walk would be nice though. Fancy coming with me?"  
  
~*~*~  
  
"This IS lousy."  
  
"You could try and be hopeful," Kylie responded from where she sat in the kitchen of the small town house they'd taken on. She was wearing a rainbow- blurred tank top, with red at the top and purple at the bottom, with a pair of cut off shorts that were too short anyway. She was curled up Indian style on the far kitchen counter, a bowl of grapes to her right and her laptop on her lap.  
  
For me, was left unspoken, but he heard it all the same, and she knew he would.  
  
"Why?" He was raging she noted, as she peered over her laptop screen before looking back down. Pacing back and forth, about to take off for work, his dark trench coat flapping behind him. "What's there to hope for? You're having worse migraines by the day, getting more repressed memories and I'm having blackouts! Tell me, Kylie, what there is to be hopeful for?"  
  
Her smile caught him and he almost laughed, as he caught a wave of love sent from her at the same second as she spoke. "Because you still have me."  
  
Kylie set her laptop on the counter left of where she sat and slipped off the counter still smiling impishly. She couldn't think to worry right now. He needed her to be strong. He stopped pacing and hugged her, and she hugged him hard right back.  
  
{Anything for you, Lee.}  
  
{Good. Then smile and make sure you're not late.}  
  
Kyle's hand raised her chin and he kissed her forehead in a brotherly manner so sweet it made her smile, as he grabbed the keys to the bike and went for the door. He turned around partially and looked over his shoulder, to see her raise her hand and wave, even as he hesitated.  
  
"Go. I'll call and leave a message for Mr. Essex again."  
  
"I love you, Lee." He said with a smile as he slipped his sunglasses down to cover what would have bothered anyone else on sight except her -- pure white, pupilless eyes.  
  
"Bet your ass, you better." She exclaimed and he left with a laugh inside him and she held onto it, as she felt him leaving for work. She needed to hold on it, or she'd forget that she wasn't as hopeful as she was trying to make him.  
  
She was starting to think Mr. Essex wasn't going to be calling them back, since this was message ten, and that they were screwed. For now, though, she was the foundation. She was Kylie Anne Summers-Chartez and, Goddess willing, if she could be strong for him, she'd never falter a step. Just for him.  
  
Besides she had an idea. From her computer. About another man that might be able to help them.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"So, what you said?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"In the car?"  
  
"About?"  
  
"About bein' too late."  
  
"No," she corrected him, with a some what firm tone which in itself worried him. "What I said was, it was good you came back before it was too late."  
  
Not a very impressive answer. She was being roundabout on this subject. He'd brought it up since she was calming and becoming quiet, and having another thing left in the silence before them might make it explode.  
  
"When is too late?"  
  
"Tomorrow."  
  
She had been walking with her hand in her pocket almost a full step in front of him fast, but this conversation seemed to make her slow down. They'd been walking a long way, to a spot she vaguely remembered. It should be around a turn anytime now, if she was right. If it hadn't changed. Glancing at him, her voice wasn't at all warm.  
  
"Got back just in the nick of time, didn't you?"  
  
"Don't make it sound like you've commissioned a parade in my honor, Pryde," he said just as dryly, before taking a drag of the cigarette in his hand, even though he was wondering what was under her skin. He bet it did have something to do with what she'd said, because bringing it up had set her on the defensive as she hadn't been in since he'd seen her again this round.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because if I'm going to keep this baby-" she started bravely, just to be pile drived by an astonished voice that repeated her.  
  
"You're keeping it?"  
  
Not amazed, not overjoyed, simply astonished, and it made her turn on her heels, even though she'd just spotted what she'd been searching for. But that had stopped her cold. What'd he think? Was he insane?  
  
"What? Yes, of course, I'm keeping it." How could he be so insensitive to think she might not? How could he---- Her temper was beginning to rise, it being only so far below the surface since he'd reappeared. "Did you expect me to get rid of it it? Is this all some problem you simply haven't found a way to get out of yet so you can go back home?" She wasn't giving him room for anything. Her finger shot out and it waved in the air. "Go home, Pete. I can handle this myself."  
  
"Claws in-" Pete had reached out and grabbed the hand that had been waving at him. But the second his fingers had landed on her wrist she'd phased straight through his grasp. "Sod you. I never said a word about you doin' a thing. This is the first time you've said anything about what you were doing with it. I'm allowed a moment to let it sink in that you're keeping......the baby."  
  
Bloody...had he almost said our child?  
  
"Fine. I'm sorry."  
  
But she didn't sound it and the way she turned around and stomped off to the bridge over the river in front of her, she didn't look it either. He stood there watching her go, wondering if she honestly thought he was going to ask her to get rid of the child like it was a bleedin' mistake. What was going through her head? What had she meant?  
  
"So?" he managed after he finally got up to the bridge after taking a minute to snuff out a cigarette with his foot, but she turned irritably from looking at him, looking down at the river..  
  
Kitty stared at the water contemplating life. This was getting to her. Perhaps spending time with Pete was a bad thing, but...no, she refused to have her child grow up with two parents who couldn't stand each other. She wouldn't put her child through that kind of life if there was a way to help it. If he hadn't wanted her to get an abortion, and she had reacted so vehemently, was their some part of her that wanted her to? A shiver ran through her, but neither seemed to notice, and she finally turned to look at him a second later, raising an eyebrow as if to ask what he meant.  
  
"The reason?"  
  
"Because..." She sighed looked back at the river and pushed herself up from leaning on the railing, leaving her hand on it, her eyes on the movement of the river. "Because you're too good at running away now."  
  
"Running? The git had a-"  
  
"I know."  
  
"He was in the bleedin'-"  
  
I know."  
  
"You know? Of course, you know! You told me to go to him." Pete was starting to get annoyed at her talk. She was still avoiding things. Staring at him as if he should just read her mind. He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. Her not talking wasn't helping at all.  
  
"I know."  
  
"What do you know, Pryde? Since you seem to 'know' everything," his voice was sarcastic in reply as he pulled out another cigarette, and fiddled with it, trying to ignore the instinct that said not to even pull one out near her. She'd let him have the earlier one as long as he didn't get too close.  
  
There was an awkward pause before she finally moved to look at him. Her eyes were clouded and she stared at him for a moment before she started talking. Her demeanor was resigned, but her voice was controlled, neither angry, nor sad, somewhere inside of brittle and tinged by hurt she couldn't eliminate from her words.  
  
"I know I never told you to go away for two weeks. I never told you not to call. To not let me know what was happening or how long you might be. I know I never asked you to abandon this-- child, even if it was a surprise to everyone. I know I never asked you to make me stand through everyone looking at me like I had gone out on a limb just to have you never return and had been foolish to even try."  
  
"Pryde, I-" but the sentence stopped there. What did he have to say for himself? He hadn't done anything. He'd avoided being near a phone and someone who knew so no one could pressure him into doing it himself and the one time he'd called, he'd hung up before anyone had picked up. "I'm sorry."  
  
He'd waited too long, and he saw the spark of cynicism that touched her expression when he said those words, but she shook her head.  
  
"You're sorry? Do you know what that was like, Pete? I defended you to them, even in front of you. To people who have raised me, taught me, and hold me dear still, who would have rather turned you out than help you now and they stared at me in silence for a week and a half. Have you ever had a silence that was worse than the words you know they're not saying, because they aren't speaking? Because they don't want to hurt you but they can't stop that look in their eyes?"  
  
Kitty crossed her arms, quelling the urge to punch him. She was damn good and ready to. She was saving herself with simply imagining reaching in and pulling out his inner organs and leaving them still attached when she unphased. "I didn't want their pity and I refuse yours."  
  
Her deep brown eyes drilled into him with an intensity he'd missed a long time, and had rarely seen directed at him since their first meeting. It would have made him flinch if he was anyone else, but he wasn't and at times like this he wondered if he worried more in his past about facing people or about the idea of having to face her full on. He had survived those, he wasn't sure he could survive her. Especially not emotionally.  
  
"I already bloody well apologized, Pryde, what more do you want?"  
  
"For you to mean it."  
  
to be continued 


	10. Part X

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 10/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
--------------  
  
Part X: "Up On All the Gory Details?"  
  
--------------  
  
Looking up information on Charles Francis Xavier, or his school, was like looking up God, or Hitler of Gandhi. Especially to a computer hacker. At the tips of your fingertips were a thousands sources that pointed this was good and another thousand that pointed to the fact it was bad. She kept trying to dig deeper, to find out more about him, decide if she could hope for anything in this search and each time she hit a wall.  
  
So far all she had found out, between all the good and bad, about the world- renowned mutant-activist Charles Xavier was that he was a reclusive philosopher and scientist. He had an undergraduate at two places, Harvard and Oxford University, in England, no less. That he served a bit in the army. Then he opened a school and became the world-renowned mutant activist.  
  
He was claimed by many, a man of reason, a champion for mutant rights, who proclaimed to have a program that would integrate mutants into society  
  
He had huge names next to him of people who'd worked with him, or he with them, and with his school, this elusive Xavier's Institute for Gifted Children. Renamed Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning when the first name was passed to a school in Massachusetts, earlier called the Massachusetts Academy, also now closed.  
  
It was confusing, because everything pointed to him being good and then there we're long things about how old, rich and dumb he was, too. That he'd been seduced by the devil to the side of evil and someone like him should be brought back or looked on with pity till he realized his mistake. She over looked most of this, taking a grain of salt with it.  
  
But, if Charles Xavier was hard to research, his school was even harder. It only registered as a highly private school, with an even more strongly guarded enrollment list. She hadn't seen a place once where it said you could request enrollment. She was doing her best to find out some instructors' names, those same big names, and some of the classes and degrees the place had handed out.  
  
It was all this huge mystery.  
  
And then.....there was the X-Men connection. The implication that their 'might' be one. The possibility was enough to drive her nuts because it was that whisper you just couldn't hear, that feeling right before someone touched you, right on the edge away for the trained thought away. It was going to drive her crazy, she decided as she closed the programs up.  
  
Taking the sticky note off the corner, with it's single telephone number on it, she placed it on top of the laptop once it was closed. The number was for the Institute. If he ran the place, hopefully someone there would know where he was, could set up an appointment for them to meet. But this was a faint hope since no one had seen hide nor hair of Xavier in at least a month.  
  
But -- Kylie decided as she rose from the dinner room chair -- she had so many thin hopes going, one more couldn't hurt at all. As she walked, Skittles, the once alley cat, wound his way through her legs, begging to be fed. So she did and then she started gathering up her things to leave.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"So they sent you back on a cruise that got attacked by a rogue team calling themselves X-Men, but who were X-Men none of you'd ever met or heard of? Who kidnapped you and brought you Xavier, except baldy wasn't the real baldy, and the real X-Men came back and got you, since," and he paused to take a bite of the burger in front of him that was dripping white-yellow oil that was supposed to be mustard and mayonnaise.  
  
"Then you found out that he was the computer that have all the X-Men's files on it, except it aborted itself? Then you chased Juggernaut around with the weather witch and the charmer, who earlier been disbanded from your team? Then you pulled kids from a burning building that this guy set on fire due to his contraction of the Legacy Virus and figured out Xavier was two people?"  
  
"Yup," Kitty replied eating a bite of her salad, glad that even if it was repetitive, she'd been able to stop talking for a while. He'd stared in awe as she reiterated everything the X-Men gone through. "Which led the other half the team way far up north to Tajikinistan, where they ran into Renee and Nina, a manite, who was watching over what was left of The Cerebro Xavier. It was interesting enough she was involved. A new species created on earth. But while we were in Holland-"  
  
"Tracking down the other Xavier coordinate," Pete nodded, "which was the actual baldy and your newest near death experience."  
  
"What can I say?" Kitty smirked teasingly, as she pushed her salad around a second with her fork. "I'm popular."  
  
Pete smiled in response and shook his head. "Have you ever thought about taking a break?"  
  
"What? And miss all the fun?" She laughed, even though some thoughts began to surface in the back of her mind. She was joking about something she shouldn't be -- now. "I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, you haven't even heard the half of it. We had a peaceful Christmas, then we had to deal with Magneto, again, and that cost us Joseph. He sacrificed himself to save the planet."  
  
"Gave him a grand going away party, too, didn't they?"  
  
Kitty was silent a moment, remembering that day. She didn't remember the funeral mostly, but the way Logan was that day. The way he'd spoken so forcefully when hiding on the roof. The funeral was nice, but her mind was on Logan's words when he'd left -- about how they could mourn Joseph, but he was too busy planning and killing Magneto.  
  
"Next was a weird trip between Juggernaut and another alien, named Ejulp, before we landed on another weird place with people who we knew were dead," she steamrolled on, rather than to keep on that thought at the moment. "Where I met an actress who played me."  
  
"You?" Pete responded with a smile half curled. He couldn't think that anyone could pull off all that was Kitty. The idea alone was preposterous.  
  
"And she was a terrible rendition. A Skrull, too." And I kicked her ass for insulting my hair, Kitty thought wryly. "Turned out they all were and it led us into a battle with Galactus, and by the work of my genius on an alien craft, we've came back home, but get this -- we came back right before the sacrifice of Joseph. Except then the ship put us into stasis and was adrift for a week. Talk about how the world doesn't watch it's friendly skies."  
  
"That's just leavin' you off at about the same time, then," he said as he crumpled the wrapper the sandwich had been in.  
  
"Oh!" Kitty pointed suddenly. "You'll get a bit out of this one, since it's . We found Douglock. He was being held captive by the Red Skull and everything's fine now, too. But it was terrific to see him, again. He made me realize how much I missed Excalibur. And, just so you know, Mister-I- Never-Have-Any-Fun, then I went on a road trip with Rogue and Kurt."  
  
"Your trip was simply for fun? What brought you back?" Pete laughed, loud and short, a cover on the fact he was wondering if her earlier comment had meant she hadn't missed his at all, before forcing up a smirk. "Something come up on your trip?"  
  
Kitty had narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn't help herself from still sounding amused as she spoke. "Well, the partying was fun. I bought this gorgeous dress and, yes, I do wish it had lasted longer, but we ended up running into Mystique -- Rogue's adopted mother and a prior member of X- Factor, with the powers of shape shifting to be anyone she wants -- and she needed our help. We also found out she had been posing as Ronnie Lake."  
  
He simply stared at her, her expression implying he should know what she was talking about. He knew Mystique by reputation, but Ronnie Lake didn't ring any bells. It sounded vaguely familiar, but not important at all. Had he met her sometime during Excalibur? It seemed doubtful. It was something small that just barely made sense.  
  
"The model of the millenium?" Kitty added, waiting to see if he'd ever get it.  
  
"There's a woman with her head on her shoulders," Pete mused, finally remembering where he'd seen the name. It'd been on those catalogues and magazines in the waiting room of the hospital. Kitty's half shocked expression almost made him smile as he tapped a finger on the table. "Smart and sensible. Takes her powers and makes herself a nice comfortable life with them."  
  
"Well, not too comfortable. Attacks by ninjas and then while Rogue was there an impromptu visit of sorts from SunFire. While she was doing that, though, I was exploring 'Ronnie's' huge penthouse. I'd been taken by curiosity of Destiny's things. I moved a picture and found a message left for me. It told me to reach inside the photo."  
  
"A message?"  
  
"Destiny was Irene Adler, a blind woman who could see into the future, and she had a penchant for doing things like that." Kitty smiled briefly, her mind dwelling on that day. "It's was still creepy, but I reached in and to my surprise found I had retrieved her diary. But that was of course, only the beginning."  
  
"Of course," Pete said, his tone sounding as if he'd expected it. He was trying to deter a urge stirring in him for a cigarette, because she was actually smiling. And the thought that she was smiling just made him think about the fact she had been less than an hour ago. "It's always only beginning."  
  
"Which leads to the last and largest thing that happe-"  
  
"You two ready for the bill?" A large woman with a broad, bored face and oddly small eyes, dressed in a maroon dress with a white smock, stared at them.  
  
Kitty looked to Pete, who looked back to her, both with about the exact expression of wondering if the other was in a mind set to stay. She relaxed before he did, pushing her plate of salad toward the center of the table and he shrugged to the woman. Kitty didn't defer to people usually and she hadn't spoken up at all and had looked away.  
  
"Why don't you give us a few more minutes and a coffee," He said, just hoping to make her leave a touch faster. "Black."  
  
"Sure," the woman with a nametag that read 'Gladys' -- upside down -- said with a slow, thick tone, before turning around and walking back toward the kitchen of the small diner.  
  
Pete looked back to Kitty and then to where she was staring out the window their booth was against. Outside was a busy street of cars whirring back and forth and back and forth. The sun was still high up in the sky and the sky was still blue. She was probably thinking it didn't look as nice as it did in the park. The park. The place he'd had to track down from something she'd said a while back.  
  
"And this larger than life newest catastrophe in your life?"  
  
Kitty had turned from the window and her thoughts to look at him when he spoke. She had decided to not go on, because she had been rattling on and on, more her nerves due to being around him than anything else, so it surprised him when he'd asked for it. She turned to look at him straight on, as he followed suit to looking forward.  
  
"It wasn't really that big," she said and if it weren't for the fact she'd downplayed that sentence, she might have laughed. The Twelve was one of the serious things they'd gone through lately. Lately being a week and half a go or so. He seemed to get that, because he didn't say anything, even when the woman brought his coffee and left again. He was just staring at her -- waiting.  
  
"It'd started between the Manites new changes, the end of Bastion, and the appearance of Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse showing up to fight us," she started slowly, pulling her keys out of her pockets and playing with them under the table. "It all started really though with the death of Death, who we thought was Logan, but turned out to be a Skrull. We recovered a Skrull at the same time who came for 'the Xavier' with a message."  
  
"Next came a briefing and the collecting of The Twelve. The Twelve were the Professor, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Iceman, SunFire, Polaris, Colossus, Cable, Bishop, Mikhail Rasputin, The Monolith and Magneto. We all went up against Death, who was really Logan this time, and lost Mikhail, only to later learn Apocalypse had him, along with X-Man, Cable, Iceman, and SunFire, already."  
  
"So they all went and faced him and the outcome was something we would only hear about after it had all happened." Watching him sip his coffee, while she wondered if she was babbling, if he even cared about what she talked about, she looked at the clock on the wall over the register, checking it once again as she spoke.  
  
"When it was all over and done and we found out about it, they failed in that battle and were all captured. They were captured, they broke free of their containment but not before a large skirmish ensued while Apocalypse tried to merge with X-Man, but not before Scott could sacrifice himself for the lives of his friends."  
  
"I had wondered where the Boy Scout you spoke of, was since I never saw him around there," Pete said setting down his coffee cup.  
  
"Mmhmm." Kitty said with an slightly off tone and a nod. She was doing her best to be good at this moment and not just tell him he hadn't been around to see anyone or anything. "But it didn't end there, it was only the beginning of Apocalypse's plan. He only needed Summers DNA, so it didn't matter which of them he took. Everything in time was getting mixed up, things that never happened started to be as if they'd had always been that way. Supposedly Jean was the first one to figure it out, with the help of Scott, who was by Xavier's call completely missing in soul after the merging."  
  
"And, now, everyone's come home, at least most everyone. Some people have already left again. Some stay quiet and try to enjoy what they could have lost. Some barely come home at all even though they aren't staying anywhere else," she mused, thinking about the fact they'd be saying goodbye to another person tomorrow morning. It was one she didn't like to think on a lot, and the more she thought about it the more she didn't like the idea.  
  
"Sounds like you had it all." The cup had been empty two minutes now and he was debating tip already on one shadowy corner of his mind "What will you do during all those long months of your pregnancy if this is the excitement of three months?"  
  
"You mean am I going to rush out and be the man on the front line?" She asked, her voice laced with laughter, even though she felt annoyance rising at his jibe. Did he think she hadn't given all this thought before now? "No, I've been giving it a lot of serious thought. I'm going to focus on dance a little more and even maybe take a few college courses at a local University--"  
  
"Kitty Pryde attempts real school?" Pete said with a laugh, feigning an aghast expression. "With all the other normal-lived girls and boys?"  
  
Sticking her tongue out at him and smiling, she replied, "It'll be ungodly torture, I know, but I think I can manage to survive it. And, as for the X- Men, I'll help in the ways I can, when I can, without putting too much risk on the baby."  
  
Gladys returned once again and Pete replied this time that they were ready for the bill, while Kitty snuck a glance at the clock and dug into her bag for her wallet. Starting to pull her money out, to cover her food, in her lap, she looked over at him.  
  
"So what'd you end up doing during all that time?"  
  
"I've got it," Pete said as he pulled out two twenties and shook his head. He didn't exactly want to remember the last few months. Somewhere inside his chest was the knowledge he'd rather sit right here and listen her talk about her happy life without him, than think about his life without her. At least right now, she was with him.  
  
"A little of this and a little of that."  
  
Kitty looked curios and unconvinced, as she closed her wallet and slipped it back into her backpack. Pulling it into her lap, backwards, her hand in the opposite strap side than her hand, so when she stood up she could slip it over one shoulder.  
  
"Nothing nearly as exciting as saving the world every day," Pete said slipping out of the booth, with a few dollar bills in his hand after leaving a minor tip. He looked at her a moment, and she thought he might say more, except it wasn't what she thought he'd say that came out. "This will only take a moment."  
  
For right now, she was somewhere near by, he reminded himself.....even if that hurt more this way, it was like a bitter sweet pain.  
  
She stared after him, not moving yet, just watching him walk away and decided she was sure about anything where Pete Wisdom was concerned. She had thought he was enthralled, then thought he was bored, then thought he was entertained and involved, just in time to hit a wall again. He would listen to her talk, but he wasn't willing to get involved.  
  
Grand. Kitty blew at a few of her bangs and got up. She couldn't remember why she'd been laughing so freely a few minutes ago, or why she'd thought watching him smile was the most perfect way to spend an afternoon. Now all she wanted was to go home.  
  
Pete came back to table, change in his pockets by now. "Ready?"  
  
"We should go back." Kitty pretended not to notice when this threw him for a loop. She knew that he knew they had another hour before they had to head back, but she blew through it. Leaving her backpack on one shoulder and starting to walk by him she commented, with an irritable tone. "I have dance practice. If we leave now I could be back in time to practice for an extra half hour to hour before class."  
  
He stared at her in total amazement. What had happened in that minute when he'd been paying the tab with Gladys? She'd seemed fine no less than three minutes ago. Had someone said something to her in that small break? Looking right to left, no one was near them. Had he said something wrong and not realized it? He'd only.....said nothing.  
  
Stupid, he thought as he walked after her, in time to push a door open before she passed through it, but it didn't gather a response of any kind.  
  
Was this about him not talking about his past three months? It wasn't like it had been much. They'd been talking and then she closed up suddenly, like a light switch. Was it over something as small as that? What'd she want to hear?  
  
That he was in a job, getting a great life and moving on into that brave, New World and so she need have no fears about him?  
  
Because she certainly didn't need to hear that he'd spent each night chasing a bottle to escape her memory, and each day to sleep away thinking of her. Of which, neither worked, since he always thought of her, and when he slept he dreamt of her and when he tried to put it all behind him and get on with life, all he wanted to do was remember there had been better.  
  
He hadn't found life without her. Only hell.  
  
to be continued 


	11. Part XI

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 11/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
Inspired by the entire beginning and a small panel on pg. 24 of Uncanny X- Men #379.  
  
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Part XI: "Nightmares Are -- What Dreams May Come"  
  
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Standing there staring at him, she was so very torn by the situation. It was completely wrong in her eyes after all that had happened, and yet to a small part of her it made perfect sense. At the moment she hated that small part and at present it lay squashed while she concentrated on many thoughts and her concentration. He had made his decision, after coming and going for a few days, and he had a right to it. She didn't have a right to change his mind.  
  
She kept repeating that part the most.  
  
He hadn't said a word, and neither of them seemed to have made a sound since she'd handed it to him. Even though she'd known him almost a full decade now, she found herself trying to memorize parts of him. The way he sat, the look in his eyes, the way he moved. Anything so long as it kept her from thinking she was counting down to the moment when he wouldn't be there any longer.  
  
Hadn't they lost enough?  
  
Why was it they had to lose more?  
  
"Something for you to remember us by, Professor...." Trying very hard not to let her thoughts show in her expression or her words, she reached up a hand toward her face, speaking from behind him. "...no matter how far from home you stray."  
  
What she was talking about was the object she had just handed him about two minutes ago -- A Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix Crystal. It was beautiful, though it seemed sad to her, too, even just sitting in his hand as he held it. He was staring at it solemnly, making her wonder what he was thinking about.  
  
They'd only used one other before. For the Shi'ar Pan Galactic Empire, these tokens, crystal orbs, were rare and an honor. A singular honor, for those who were imprinted in them would never truly died.  
  
The last one had been for Jean Grey after her sacrifice on the Blue Side of the moon. Bound in that one was not only a physical representation of that child, but the essence of her person, too. Her personality and the feeling you got when standing close to her. Holding it always made people think that she was actually alive and near them.  
  
It had been given to the Grey's, but it was most likely in Jean's possession now. Especially since she wasn't dead. This one, otherwise identical though not of Jean Grey, was placed in the hands of the Professor for safekeeping for him not forget them, she'd said. It was the nagging thought in the back of her head -- thought that whispered about how long he'd been gone last time.  
  
He had been gone so long that time.  
  
"It is a gift I shall treasure, Katherine," Xavier replied to her softly, as he took his eyes away from the orb. It made him feel sad to stare at it. He had failed a student and in so doing, failed them all. It wasn't hard to admit it now. The same feeling he'd had when any passed away. They'd lost too many.  
  
Calvin Rankin. The Changeling. John Proudstar. Jean Grey. Doug Ramsey. Illyana Rasputin. Jamie Maddrox. Yes, some there were special circumstances, excuses and complications, but each of those names was a dagger still stuck in his heart. Each name was a catch in his throat as he fought to say the words that came, the ones he wasn't sure would come out. "Thank you."  
  
"I still don't understand, Professor," Piotr started, and being the closer one to the Professor, an arm on the back of the hover chair, Kitty reached out a hand to touch the large Russian's shoulder. She wasn't sure if it was to strengthen his resolve to ask a question she couldn't voice or if it was to stop him. Her touch didn't affect his words, none the less. "Why you have to leave?"  
  
"Fate has entrusted this mutant branch of the Skrull race into our hands, Colossus. Given their numbers and the desperation of their forebears, they can not truly make a place for themselves on Earth," the Professor responded to the large very open man to his right, as he began manipulating one of the arms of his hover chair. The left arm front opened and he placed the Shi'ar Holempathic Crystal in there gently.  
  
The ship was ready and the Skrulls were headed for them. He moved forward toward the open door still finishing his words to Piotr. "They are hardly more than children, Peter. They need a place to call their own, and someone to shepherd them. I know this sounds harsh but their need is greater."  
  
And then he was gone. Then the door was closed and the two X-Men were left standing there, feeling a degree of abandonment not to be rivaled at the moment. Kitty had seen the grimace that had taken Piotr's face, before she turned to one side trying not to feel as if someone who'd been her father figure hadn't just walked of her in this point in her life.  
  
It was a minute before she pushed it away. It was then she realized that they were holding each other's arm in part, not looking at each other, just using the other for support for a moment when their main one for many years, who had pushed them, loved them and taught them was suddenly gone. She opened her eyes first, working hard not to let her eyes tear up.  
  
"Well, that's that. It's over," she said, soft in volume, and tense with emotion, among many, relief and anger prevalent. Her eyes went beyond him on the craft that had risen off the ground, and he was turning to watch it too when he responded.  
  
"You make it sound like Professor Xavier is abandoning us, Katya."  
  
"Whatever. The only thing that really matters, Piotr Nikolievitch, is that he's gone," was her hard response. It was his choice, wasn't it? Who he helped and who he didn't? Where he lived and where he left behind him? This time it wasn't even for the "love of his life". Well, it was his choice, wasn't it?  
  
So, why did she feel like punching something till it fell apart?  
  
"Have faith, ShadowCat. He will be back," Piotr said, squeezing her arm lightly as the ship began to get smaller in the sky. He felt a familiar waft of sadness inside his heart watching the Professor vanish from their lives, but it was worse to hear the stirrings of resentment starting to infiltrate her voice.  
  
"Whenever. He made his choice," Kitty said, disentangling her arm from holding his and his hold on hers. She ran her hands down the stomach of her yellow and blue costume, absently, watching the Skrull ship almost till it became a dot. She felt abandoned completely, but she couldn't take her eyes off that dot and found it hard to swallow that he hadn't turned back and changed his mind at any step.  
  
He was gone. They would all be left to deal with an even greater loss than that of one death.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I have dreams of my own that have nothing to do with this uniform," she said, indicating with her hands to the long body suit in blue and yellow. One part of the collar around her neck was against her cheek where her face was tilted, seeming cold even though it was her normal body temperature. "- or the life it represents. Maybe it's time to see where they lead."  
  
Those words ran a slight edge of wonder under his skin, as if she'd just announced she'd be the next person leaving now. They all knew she was backing off and that made perfect sense, but she'd never announced thinking about leaving. "What will you-"  
  
But those were all the words he got to before both of their bodies were suddenly flooded with agony. She heard him cry out, fighting the urge to scream was trying to figure out what was wrong, when found herself falling toward the floor, her arms over her stomach. She was going down fast on her knees and she phased to save herself from slamming her knees and legs.  
  
And then a harsher pain came, like a rod slammed straight into her center, another wave, as her legs slammed into the ground. That she couldn't phase was a shock that she was just registering, the pain wasn't stopping. Tears crept from her eyes, and she clenched her teeth, feeling like they all might shatter if the waves of pain didn't stop. There was a blackness coming, she saw as she fell to one side Piotr was near her staring at his hands until he shifted to her.  
  
More tears fell from her eyes as she clutched her arms over her stomach and cried out no longer able to be silent. He looked shocked but recovered, and she barely noticed it due to the darkness over coming her, her words only just making it out before her eyes closed. "Piotr? Piotr...help."  
  
~*~*~  
  
At that very same second others panicked as well.  
  
Her scream had brought her next door neighbor running, but what he saw wasn't what he expected. There was one of his neighbors, the young girl of the twins, in a pair of silky blue sleep pants and a loose white tank top, looking as shaken as if someone had raised a gun to her, tears flowing down her cheeks. Her eyes had widened on seeing him and seemed filled with an even larger fear suddenly.  
  
"Woah! It's okay! Really! I'm here to help," Riley tried to comfort her as he realized she was shaking like a leaf, too. It was only obvious when you came closer to her. "What happened?"  
  
She could barely make word from syllables. She couldn't read him. She could accept that. That could be a momentary problem, or a gift from Kyle, or some odd alignment of the moon and stars. No she was terrified and what she was terrified of drove her as close to sudden insanity as she'd even gone. She couldn't feel Kyle. In the back of her head, like a breath away from her being. It was empty. It was dark.  
  
She was alone.  
  
"T-t-there wa-s-s-s a b-b-ig-g r-a-a-at," Kylie got out slowly between sobs, standing there feeling like she was rooted to the spot, but at the same time like a gust of wind could have knocked her over. An obvious lie, but it was the only thing she could come up with, thinking her world was over.  
  
"Where is it? Where's your broom?" He asked, feeling a little odd racing into an apartment with a girl who'd been as nice as one of those old tv shows to him since he'd met her, in her sleep clothes crying.  
  
"K-kitchen-n. B-b-bathroom," she stuttered out, unable to think at all. She didn't want to be rational. She didn't want to think. Didn't want to be. Without him she'd rather die. She didn't want to live without him.  
  
"Got it." And he went running and she fell perfectly to the floor.  
  
She'd done too much yoga and it came too naturally. She ended up Indian style on the floor staring at the plush carpet, unable to banish this aloneness from her mind. She was completely alone. All alone. The world was only her. Her and only her. She was alone. All Alone.  
  
That was the repetitive circle of her thoughts. Nothing disturbed it. When Skittles came and curled up in her lap, she didn't look up. When Riley found no rat in bathroom and came to tell her such, she didn't look up. He gathered what he thought was a nod from her. But she just sat there, her hair falling all around her face, her body shaking, racked with harder shuddering due to the fact she was crying harder now.  
  
It was like this for about ten more minutes -- nonstop -- till suddenly the front door Riley had quietly closed flung open and slammed into the wall creating a hole where the door handle slammed through the wall. She held a choke and her head shot up as something slammed through her. There was a simultaneous yell of two nearly identical names.  
  
Kylie had jumped up and flung herself into Kyle's arms, which fell into the same moment that had he grabbed for her. What Riley saw after opening his door across there's for another time at a yell was the two twins holding each other tight. How odd.....how very odd. And as nothing happened and neither moved in that next thirty seconds he figured everything was okay and went back into his apartment.  
  
When one of them finally moved it was him, and she was surprised to see he was crying now. He hadn't been. He was running his hands over her face and he'd stooped a moment with his hands on both sides of her face against her cheeks. His face was so close to hers that there wasn't half an inch between their faces and he whispered softly. "I was so afraid that something had happened to you. That I'd lost you."  
  
"Love you, Ky." Kylie nodded, trying to swallow the sobs that were still rising after crying so long. Her eyes were releasing tears slowly down her cheeks, which ran into the crevices of her nose as his fingers got in the way of their fall. "I'd never -never- leave you."  
  
Kyle put his arms back around his twin and let her curl into his arms, holding him around his middle with a strength that might surprise people could come out of something as small as her, and he placed kisses in her hair. She started to cry again, except this time it was more confused. She had Kyle, without having him in her mind. She had life without powers, which evaporated problems.  
  
He had the same things going on in his mind, except now he was trying to make it all stay away. He was trying to be strong for her. To let her lean on him, since he couldn't get into her mind and simply calm her and reassure her with love and thoughts and words and feelings. All he could do was hug her and tell her he loved her. That he'd never leave her.  
  
And suddenly that all seemed very hollow.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Usually it would come in small ways. A noise, like a ringing phone, a buzzing alarm clock, a voice talking with another one as it walked by outside. All subtle small things that brought about a rise to consciousness so that it was gradual and slow, that were normal. But nothing about this day was normal, so she woke up with a jarring start, gasping for air.  
  
A hand landed on her shoulder, gentle it seemed, but firm as it pushed her back down on to the bed. Then came glaring color of bright white light above her flooding like needles into the back of her eyes, making her wince. The next time she opened her eyes, it was very slowly, to look at the person who was still standing next to her. They were moving around and then waiting it seemed.  
  
Blinking, the face came in slowly into focus for Kitty, and she tried to offer a feeble smile, even though she wasn't sure why she did it. Her mind started racing as she noticed the Med Lab around them and the concern in the person's eyes. She remembered the waves of pain and something being wrong with her powers.  
  
Why was she here?  
  
She must have passed out, she decided, finally relaxing into the bed and looking at the glaring light again for a moment, before glancing over at Ororo standing at her bedside, still not saying anything. A fear was starting to creep slowly down her spine as her hands found their way, under the blanket over her, to rest over her stomach.  
  
"Did something happen to the baby?"  
  
Ororo's troubled expression found amusement that the first words Katherine had said went for her child. Nothing for her safety, nor about her powers, but then she'd had all the time in the world to sit here waiting and think about it. She'd been the one to offer to wait and watch until Katherine woke up. She'd had time to sit and contemplate feeling like everything had suddenly gone much worse than they were ever prepared for.  
  
"Your child is fine, Kitten," the ex-weather which said wistfully, reaching out to brush Kitty's bangs from her forehead. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Good. I think," she said, confused, raising to a sitting position letting the blanket pile in her lap. "Maybe a little fuzzy."  
  
"That's probably the medicine," Ororo said, looking at the chart on the wall above Kitty. "We had to give you a heavy pain killer. It seems your body didn't react as well to the change as everyone else did."  
  
"Everyone? Changes?" Kitty twisted under the blanket to see Ororo's eyes drop for a moment, and suddenly she remembered Piotr staring at his hands in disbelief. Her voice started slowly, completely made of disbelief. "There was a moment, when I was falling -- because of the pain -- and I tried to phase but nothing happened?"  
  
"Yes, Kitten. Everyone has been stripped of their powers," she said, taking a step back from the bed and sitting on a chair that was just behind where she had been standing. A place she'd been sitting for quite some time waiting for her young friend to awaken. "-by the High Evolutionary. He has decided that mutants threaten the existence of humans and that without the existence of mutants, people like Magneto couldn't have come into power."  
  
"It wasn't a fluke," she whispered softly, her hand going to the hexagram at her breastbone, her beautiful silver Star of David. She found herself thinking that her entire being seemed bleak for a moment. Dear God, they'd all been robbed of the things given to them at birth. Their birth right. The thing life's subtle changing through generations had given them.  
  
All of it raped from them in a single swipe.  
  
"I understand your shock, Kitty," Ororo nodded, from where she sat with her hands on her knees, a woman who could usually feel the weather all around and manipulate it feeling herself remarkably....human. She rose slowly wishing that she could be positive everyone was fine....all of the X-Man in different places now.  
  
Bobby and Hank in Genosha, Jean had left suddenly, as had Nathan, perhaps they went together. No one knew though. All of them in different parts of the globe, suddenly very human.  
  
"I'll leave you time to change, take a shower if you wish, and dress." She pointed at the empty bed next to them where a pair of jeans and a shirt sat folded neatly. "There are many people waiting to see how you're doing, especially one enthusiastic Mr. Wisdom who had to be removed for the room at one point."  
  
And thought she didn't say it out loud yet, she amended her thought with, 'and someone who's affections and fears over you we've misjudged.'  
  
Kitty nodded, feeling a touch numb, as she listened. Pete came, the baby was okay, and she was.....human? Normal? Why did she feel so singled out and strange then? She now matched every other expectant mother in the world and it hurt inside her chest.  
  
"We also will need to talk at some point when you're feeling better."  
  
She raised her head slightly, looking over at her friend and the woman who'd been as much a mothering influence on her all her years at the school. They'd each gone through so much getting to this day, and each seemed to know tomorrow was only going to be harder than today was.  
  
"About?"  
  
"Perhaps it should wait until-"  
  
"I'm drugged," Kitty pleaded softly, kneading her blanket in her hands, knowing this was about to be the thing that could obliterate her world. It would have to --wouldn't it? -- if Ororo was willing discuss loosing their powers and this needed to wait. "But the rest of it won't change. If there's something else I have to hear I'd rather get it all at once."  
  
Ororo felt her heart go out for Katherine staring at her. They'd all had a few hours. Perhaps that was why she let go of the fight to make this wait. They all needed a small bit of good news if they were willing to take, if they were going to survive this newest fight to live free of persecution.  
  
"During your medical scans to make sure you and your child were fine," Ororo said, watching Kitty's face for the signs of what she'd be saying. "The sex of your child came up as part of the scan information on the second person being scanned."  
  
"You mean you could tell me-" Kitty for a moment let everything else crowd the back of her mind, as her sentence stopped, and she stared in down toned amazement.  
  
"Yes, I could tell you whether your child will be a boy or a girl." Folding her hands together, she stared only at this girl, who was becoming a mother where as most of the X-Men had to work their hardest just to get and keep a relationship. She was going to have a child to laugh and cry over.  
  
"I'm the only person who knows, and I can have it erased from the records on your word, but this must be your choice, Kitten. I won't let anyone take it from you."  
  
to be continued 


	12. Part XII

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 12/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
After Uncanny X-Men #379 and before X-Men #99.  
  
Inspired by my beta reader, Luba. Because even though it was planned she wrote me a response opinion to an earlier piece and inspired me to write huge pieces of this one before it was time for this one to be worked on even.  
  
--------------  
  
Part XII: "Once More with Feeling"  
  
--------------  
  
Sitting there in the empty and yet not silent Med-Lab she tried to calm herself enough to be 'okay' by the time she walked out of the room. Her legs were now swung over the side of the bed and her hands rested on her stomach. She'd always found it a peculiar position, sitting there holding a part of you, even seeing it on movies and watching people, but now she found it strangely comforting.  
  
Kitty looked down at her stomach, aware of the fact she wasn't showing much at all yet, but there was this life growing inside her. Something warm permeated her thoughts and the area of her heart thinking about this and she stroked her stomach, as she said into the bleak, bright room.  
  
"I promise I won't let anything happen to you. I'll protect you, keep you safe."  
  
But suddenly she thought about that and about what to protect it from. What now? Were the only dangers she would need to protect her child from be scraps and bruises, cars going too fast when she crossed the streets, drugs and alcohol when it was older? Her baby was going to be human by all factors now even if the genetic code had been set to release gifts later in life.  
  
Rubbing her stomach for a second as it gurgled, and she thought about food, she slipped off the bed heading for her clothes. She was brought short before she got to them though. Across the end of that same bed with her clothes was draped her uniform and she couldn't fight the temptation to walk to it. She raised a hand to touch it and stopped before her fingers did.  
  
Hadn't she said just this morning she had a life and dreams she needed to see where they would lead? She had and she still felt that way, so -- why now? -- did she feel overwhelming waves of guilt now came from that fact. She had been mad and felt abandoned once again by someone who wore the X or another symbol like it and she'd lashed out for that reason.  
  
But she hadn't meant this. This sudden and total removal of all that they were. That was like a normal kid asking for a car for Christmas every year after they got a licensee. They never got it and never truly expected to, but they asked none the less. Of course the X-Men wished for peace, for time to live their own lives and see where they went -- that didn't mean it happened.  
  
They were heroes. They fought the bad for the good of the world -- even if it meant fighting themselves -- but they never just quit.  
  
Running her fingers along this cold, molecularly unstable material slowly, Kitty felt a part of her being had suddenly been just changed, like someone ran a white out marker over it, or deleted a few lines of who she was. Now a choice she taken long ago no longer seemed to matter. Now her life as ShadowCat was taken from her and that warred with frustration and anger seeping into and warred with the guilt.  
  
The High Evolutionary in one quick movement had stolen from her -- and everyone else -- their lives, their livelihood, and the things god, himself, had graced their lives with. There was this open hole in side her, like someone had drilled down, scooped out her innards, covered the hole and yet, miraculously, she was still alive.  
  
Just less than what she had been.  
  
Pulling her hand away from it she just stared at the uniform. She'd had a dozen different ones. Everyone progressed through different ones when they felt it was time to. She remembered the day Emma Frost and Charles Xavier had come to her house, both wanting to talk about their schools and how they were both 'perfect' for her. She'd had one of her headaches and, falling asleep upstairs on her bed, woken up on the floor downstairs about twenty feet below it.  
  
That was only the beginning. She'd done so much, with so many, for so long.....and now? Now she was normal, human, Homo sapiens. Humans spent years yelling, telling, lecturing about how mutants were dangerous to society, lesser beings with fearsome powers who should be wiped out --  
  
-- so why was it now she felt even less being one of them?  
  
~*~*~  
  
This place was still unsettling as all hell. Even just sitting there in a room that was frequented by people every few minutes -- probably sent to check up on him -- who had short and mostly meaningless conversations with him -- was. It was like being drilled by someone's family to everything they wanted to know about you and only certain ones understood there was a limit to what you'd say.  
  
They all brought their shadow with them. That newness of being different and not used to it. To his surprise, he found himself half-smiling when he talked to Rogue and Sarah, because they out of everyone seemed suddenly to have found a new freedom in what had happened. They were the only two who succeeded in some moments in actually taking his mind from worrying about Kitty lying in that bed, something wrong with her or their child, or both.  
  
One was now supposedly taken from all the pain she could ever have due to bones growing out of her skin, though she did mention, with a small wistful voice, that it had been getting easier and she had had more control over it now. The other, well known for her early career in crime, nervous and overjoyed at the fact she could touch people -- though she still had her gloves on.  
  
These two flitted back and forth, coming back into the room every half-hour or so, Sarah more than Rogue, which gave him a short handle on the time. He'd been sitting there about three and half hours when Sarah left the room for this latest time, carrying the art pad in her hand that she brought down to show him since they'd found themselves discussing --of all things -- art.  
  
Most of the jitters settled down in the first hour when nothing happened, after he'd been brought out of the Med Lab for a mistaken comment about having not eaten anything so far that day. He made a note to never say it again. He'd been dragged out of the room where Kitty had lain sleeping and given piles of food. It seemed they'd been having a free day before all the hustle and bustle, and that meant a picnic; including a famous Rogue made boysenberry pie even.  
  
But though the meal was good, he longed simply to know Kitty was fine and everything else would be, too. He was kept updated very often and the things left unsaid filled open space for all of them. She was still unconscious when they'd expected her to wake up an hour ago now. That concept of that delay, and the fears that came with it, weighed heavily on all of them.  
  
But what weighed on him most was what he saw while watching her lay there, pale and chilled, in that bed. Her hair, not haloed around her face, like he remembered from so many nights and mornings when she'd fall asleep fast or he'd woken up early, hanging limp around her face, her skin clammy, and yet her expression peaceful. That was a touch unnerving.  
  
Her peaceful expression, while everyone else was dour, confused and at odds with the world. He longed just to reach out and touch her for whole minutes and then he had. The world hadn't exploded, the seas hadn't stopped hitting the shore and his heart hadn't stopped beating. He'd slowly tucked her hair behind her ear -- just waiting to be told by some person, suddenly, to step away -- and then trailed a finger, very slowly and tentatively, down her cheek, like it was the first time he'd ever touched her as he whispered softly.  
  
"You hafta wake up, Pryde. All your X's don't know what to do with you stuck down here." He raised his hand thinking about touching her again, and still stuck in the fact her skin was incredibly soft, but he placed it on the rail and spoke with an even softer volume. "I don't either."  
  
But she hadn't moved or opened her eyes. It was about a moment later Ororo and Elizabeth had walked back in to check on her, and found during a conversation that he hadn't eaten. He was starting to realize X-Men in droves, no matter if they had powers or not, could make you move whether you wanted to or not. Not that he regretted it too much. He'd eaten something and it had been a free meal, too.  
  
Everyone talked and yet didn't talk about the day and what had happened. Pete was one of those who seemed to fall into the category of those who didn't talk much about it. He hadn't used his powers that often in the last few months, aside from lighting cigarettes and perhaps a few other reasons with preservation, so perhaps, that was why he didn't feel like someone had blind-sided him with a truck by taking them.  
  
"Pete?"  
  
He'd spent months and years in his past wishing he could be anything but what he was, because what he was had made it easier to do the jobs he'd done. Times when he wanted to put all of it behind him, even if it meant giving up his powers along with giving up the ghost. Perhaps it was also that he had a person to actually worry about where as many said there wasn't a thing to be done about their powers.  
  
"Pete?"  
  
Looking up suddenly toward the voice he found himself staring at the tall Asian woman, with the tattoo down half of her face, again. She was looking at him with a passive expression, perhaps touched with curiosity and concern after calling him twice and not being heard once though she'd stood in the same spot both times.  
  
"She's awake and has been upstairs now a minute," Betsy said, glancing down the hallway before looking back to him. "I thought you should be told she's on the front porch, fresh air and all that nonsense."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Opening the door wide he found her standing at the top of the stairs, looking outward most probably, but he couldn't tell from behind her. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt now, instead of the medical dress that had been put on during her tests. She didn't turn, so he guessed she hadn't heard him walk outside at all, so he walked to behind her.  
  
"How are you fe-"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"And the baby?" Pete watched her as she didn't move, but only spoke. She hadn't moved at all. The breeze ruffled her shirt and her hair, but nothing else moved. In profile she was still looking very far out and still seemed pale to him.  
  
"It's fine." Her words were hard and hollow, even though she still hadn't moved. Her eyes had been focused on a far distant speck and she had only to move now, to look down at her feet with an urge to shuffle them.  
  
"Do you want something to eat?"  
  
"I'd be in the kitchen if I wanted food," she answered him as she finally moved toward a large, white marble column, placing a hand against it. "Look, Pete, I appreciate what you're doing, but you don't-"  
  
"Have to worry about you because you passed out in overwhelming amounts of pain in a hanger, when everyone else at most felt a sharp pain?" He asked, starting to sound a little sharper. He had sat in the mansion for three hours, just to be brushed off??  
  
"No. I'm fine. Everything's fine," Kitty turned to look at him finally, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Focusing on his face seemed hard for her and she still felt a touch fuzzy. He on the other hand was trying not to remember that he'd opened himself up so much earlier, just to be treated like this once she woke up.  
  
"I understand that Piotr called you once I was in the Med Lab and they were doing tests, but everything's fine now. You don't have to wait around on me like I almost died. I'm fine." She shivered a touch due to the fact it was mid winter and Ororo no longer controlled the skies over their lot making it warmer for then. "I'm in terrific health and I've been assured it won't happen again."  
  
"Fine. I give up, Pryde," Pete said, a resigned and incredibly annoyed tone starting to seep out.  
  
"What?" She asked, staring at him. Her eyes were alight with bewilderment and confusion. After all he'd taken her from thoughts of her own health, and that of her child, to his resignation for something.  
  
"I give up tryin' to please whatever god forsaken part of you wants to treat me like the pebble in your shoe."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Kitty had raised an eyebrow at his speech, being totally unprepared for something of this superficial voice.  
  
"About this stupid game we're playing," he shot back with a wave of his hand, as if to symbolize everything. "I'm tired of playing it, Pryde."  
  
"Between the baby and everyone loosing their powers today, this is not-"  
  
"Oh, go dry up. My father is dying," he was surprised he had said it, but he was on too much of a roll to stop now. "And -will you look that? Surprise! Surprise!-, now, my ex-girl friend is pregnant with my child. Except, instead of acting like a would be worried soon-to-be mother, she wants to act like the queen of the ruddy world. Everything on her time, when she wants it and only then."  
  
"Stop this, Pete," Kitty said tensely, starting to wonder if he'd gone insane. She hadn't done a thing to deserve this treatment. "I'm not in the mood after today and we don't have time for a-"  
  
"We don't have the time, Pryde? We don't have the TIME?" He said, his voice rising more and more as they spoke. "I have all the bloody time in the world. I came running when you said it was important, showed up on your doorstep every single morning that I could -- to the mother of my child who has only acknowledged that it is MY child, too, the day she told me."  
  
"It's not enough that I just had what could have been the worst complication with my pregnancy so far, is it?" Kitty spit back, not being able to stand this tirade on her pride and her after being so long silent against it. "I lost my powers, today, everyone did, doesn't that matter to you either? Something you've had all your life and it's suddenly gone and-"  
  
"And a bloody mad man is going to take over this universe tomorrow morning!" He yelled at her, walking down the front steps. "At this rate, our child will be grown up and gone by the time you're ready to talk!"  
  
"Where are you going?" she called out, following him down the stairs of the Institute. "I thought we we're supposed to go into town later this evening?"  
  
He kept walking, and it wasn't past fifteen seconds when he turned and looked at her. His eyes hard, his mouth tight, and she shuddered at the cold expression he gave her. She hadn't seen it since the day he'd walked out. Not since he'd looked at her and said the words that had hurt when she'd mentioned he'd said he loved her.  
  
"You live in a mansion run by an eccentric old man who has more money than most third world countries -- with people who've given you everything you've ever asked for, while others of us don't have that -- I'm sure there's a car you can borrow somewhere in this mess." He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and raised it to his lips, pulling out a lighter. Yes, focus on anything except the pain in your heart or her eyes.  
  
"You can find me in the same motel I've been in for the past week when you're ready to be bloody human and discuss what's really goin' on, Pryde." Lighting his cigarette, as the flame vanished into the lighter, his eyes left her face and he turned to walk away.  
  
If there were other noises in the world around them, neither of them heard it. Perhaps each thought the other would act. One to call out, the other to turn around. But nothing happened. Kitty Pryde stood stranded on the middle of the front porch steps as Pete Wisdom continued to walk and then drive away. There was no world for the two as this happened.  
  
If there had been a gulf once, it seemed like a gaping chasm now and each wondered if this was that final straw.  
  
to be continued 


	13. Part XIII

(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 13/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
After Uncanny X-Men #379 and before X-Men #99.  
  
--------------  
  
Part XIII: "Will You, If I Lie"  
  
--------------  
  
"Tryin' to freeze to death?"  
  
"Watching the sky."  
  
She wasn't that startled by the sudden appearance of someone - no less, him - at her side, but it hadn't caused her to move till he spoke. Her eyes had been focused on the deep velvety blue before her. Something simple and normal. That was there when she was born and would still be there after she died. It could just suddenly vanish or leave.  
  
A soft sigh parted the center of her lips, and she drew the blanket around her shoulders a little closer to her as a strong breeze went though it. He had responded and she felt an urge to expand even though she knew she didn't have to.  
  
"I remember when I first came here, and it was still this amazingly huge place I was going to get lost in everyday, I would come and sit out here. I'd marvel at how the stars were still the same here as home and on windy nights - like tonight - I'd sit outside and let the air stream straight through me. I was trying to remember the first time I felt that."  
  
Kitty shook her head and shivered as a gale blasted through her blanket again, and her glance seemed to dare him to send her inside. But he didn't. He was looking off at the Brimstone Lake in the visible distance from them, stars on the earth. He hadn't been someone to take best to the change as far as she knew, which was very little these days.  
  
As another breeze cycled through she put her hand out in the breeze, feeling it pass through her fingers. Those same fingers clenched into fist before the breeze had even past and she said with a hard tone.  
  
"It's not right."  
  
"No one ever said it was," Logan's gruff voice so close to her responded the moment after her outburst and she looked over at him. If it wasn't her imagination he'd winced when he'd turned to look at her. How...odd??  
  
"We're the X-Men," Kitty relented to a lower tone. "We should be solving this, figuring out how to make it right, change it back. Not running around like this is some new gift from god. That is - was out life - our life! - and they don't care!"  
  
"They jest-"  
  
"Aren't trying!" Katherine yelled into the howling wind. And crossed her arms, even with her hands still holding parts of the blanket. She refused to give into the feeling of the cold. She'd be fine out here. "They're running around down town, doing everything, everywhere - everything normal - leaving here and forgetting the X-Men! I mean look at it, Betsy and Warren took off for a vacation yesterday. Jean's gone home to her parents. Rogue and Remy vanished the first night. Everyone....just split."  
  
"Would you feel better 'n Genosha fightin' beside Magneto, with Hank an' Bobby?" He asked fixing her with an unblinking stare through her entire rant.  
  
"I can't." Her hands uncrossed from her shoulders and slid to her stomach still holding the blanket around her close. It was a guilty feeling that filled her knowing she couldn't do it. Couldn't do anything. "I promised I wouldn't place myself into any danger in this -" she glared at the sky, before finishing. "-this condition. I didn't make that promise thinking I'd have to watch the X-Men dissolve before my own eyes."  
  
"Can ya spite Rogue for bein' glad ta be free of her powers?"  
  
"I-" Kitty opened her mouth, too far gone on her triad, she was read for anything to be able to have a smart remark to, but closed it in the next moment. She blinked and looked down at the ground. How could ever held it against Rogue who they'd never been able to help? "No. She can finally touch people after not being able to for such a long time...for her whole life."  
  
"It's just...well," she continued, fiddling with the blanket in the balls of her hands. "Everyone else. Ororo, you, the vacationers, the entire Senior Staff members."  
  
"What would ya have us do, pum'kin?" He said, as he reached over and pulled her close to him, noticing even though she seemed to be trying to hide it; that she was shivering.  
  
"Something....anything," she said with a resigned tone as she allowed herself to be moved. There wasn't enough will in her to fight the entire world And especially not everyone she loved.  
  
"Shouldn't ya think about fxin' your own life bef're everyone else's?"  
  
"Fix what?"  
  
"From tha' girl who hasn't been out of her bedroom or comput'r room for nothin' but food, nor left the house except twice in three days for dance?" He ran his hand along her arm over the blanket as she shivered again at a sharp strong breeze. "Wisdom hasn't come by in all tha' time neither."  
  
"Oh, great. Now I'm getting my love life critiqued by the man still in a legally binding marriage contract with Viper?" She regretted her words once the first time the started spilling out of her lips, and a second time when he stiffened, a growl raising in his throat. Stupid. She was too ready lash out right now. She wasn't mad at him at all. No not him. "I -- I'm -- we -"  
  
She sighed again and moved to rub her face with her hands still holding the blanket, feeling already as he relaxed marginally that it was something he was trying to over look. She ended up looking down at her blanket when she said it, moving it between her fingers. "We had a fight."  
  
"Wher's he now?" Logan asked watching the girl who was as much his daughter as he'd ever had.  
  
"Probably in his hotel room," Kitty replied with a quiet voice. "He said he wasn't coming back pretty much."  
  
"An' he's just sittin' there waitin'?" He asked as he looked down at the top of her head, where it rested on his shoulder now. "That'd be a nice bill for nothin' but sittin' an' waitin'. How's he payin' for all this, Kitty?"  
  
"I don't-" she started and moved slightly, to see him, her face contorted with confusion. "Why would I?"  
  
"Weren't ya the one who related that he spends his money on his fathers bills?" He watched a dawning shock start to widen her eyes in the light that only sat around them from one house light and the moon. "I'd say those bill are higher now with his probl'ms."  
  
"I - he -we never talked about it," she said, stiffening and starting to feel like she'd been incredibly stupid to not think about it. Her right hand fiddled inside the blanket with her Star of David now. How stupid of her! Not to think about where the money was coming from for him to be here. What about that car? And his food? And everything?  
  
"Seems there's a lot of that goin' around."  
  
She flushed the more he spoke, feeling more shame over take her being as she just let her head fall back on his shoulder. She felt like she was just waking up. Like someone had slapped her. Like someone had finally made her open her eyes....but whatever she felt, Logan still spoke, perhaps thinking she wasn't getting it.  
  
"An no matter what's goin' on between you and Wisdom, who made wha' mistakes now, in the end neither of ya are going to be the one to get the worst of this if you both stay locked in yer own worlds an' no one gives any."  
  
Kitty's hand let go of the Star of David, even though she didn't look at him, and lowered her hand slowly back to her stomach.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Another girl watching the stars, not so far away, felt hand settle on her shoulders and she looked over her right shoulder to meet the tan face in the dark. It was harder to se him because the lights inside the apartment silhouetted him. Nothing ever shadowed him to her. Not even this new problem  
  
"You okay?" He asked softly, as he started to knead her shoulders slowly.  
  
"Mhmm." She said turning back to the sky, her hands on the railing of the balcony as she stared upward. Her words were hesitant. "I'm all packed. I - I'm ready for tomorrow."  
  
A hard sigh came from behind her, from him, and a shiver ran down her spine, his hands stopping all at once. She felt his breath in her hair before he placed a kiss in her hair and moved his arms around her shoulders to hold her against him a moment. "Tell me what your thinking, Lee."  
  
Tear pricked her eyes, because she knew what it must have taken for him to finally say that. He hadn't let her feel weakened by all this for three days and everytime she'd ask he'd tell her he was fine, even if the phantoms in his eyes lied to her as well as shadows hide in the light.  
  
"I'm thinking out parents must have been out there somewhere. That they loved us in some shape or form. That I wish the dreams I got have meaning. And-" She raised her hands from the railing to close her arms over his and hug his arms, feeling his cheek against her hair. "I think that I love you more than life, and I can feel your pain even if I can't hear what your thinking. I think I know that there's a choke in your throat and a wish to cry that's stronger than you want to admit to me."  
  
His arms tightened on her, but she wasn't too surprised. She wasn't surprised when she heard the faint but deep inhale through his nose. She looked down at his hands and pulled the one that crosses over her from her left and rested on her shoulder up to kiss.  
  
"I think that you've lost your black outs, and I've lost my headaches, and we'd pay all the money they left in their death to us, if they'd just give us back everything that's been taken away."  
  
A sniffle came from behind her while at the sometime a tear rolled down her cheek that she didn't move to wipe away.  
  
"I think tomorrow we'll get on a boat for a two week cruise and try to enjoy that now all we are is what people perceive us to be. Twins. Orphans. The Billionaire Chartez Twins. As two people who are inseparable. They'll be thoughts about incest that we won't be able to laugh at. They'll be so many thoughts and feeling we won't feel that we'll stick away from people, because of doubt, and be perceived further as loners."  
  
Another tear feel down her cheek and she could tell a section of her hair was wet now, but she couldn't seem to feel the weight of him on her shoulders, even though he hadn't moved even slightly. She wasn't going to move at all if she could help it. He was leaning on her. He needed her. He needed her so much that he had to get over the fact he'd never needed to say anything before for her to be there for him.  
  
"I think that each day we'll each fear that the other is drifting further from us, and that one day we'll loose each other forever. That everytime we part to spend even moments apart, that this is the first step to longer and longer times apart. That we might forget what each others mental voice sounds like, or the pull of true emotion inside of us pulled by our other half."  
  
She finally moved and he stiffened because she did, and opened his arms but all she did was turn around inside his arms and pull him toward the rail, and lean her waist against it with her weight and look up into his eyes. What she saw broke the resistance not to cry and more tears fell from her eyes. She took his hand and placed it over her heart and placed her over his.  
  
"But I know this, Kyle. I know the beat of your heart, and the way you breathe. I know your touch on my skin. I know what all of your expressions will mean even if I never saw them directed at me. I know that way your lips just barely move, not even forming a smile, when you're actually amused at something. And I know that I will love you even with my last dying breath no matter what happens after this day, and that you still love me more than anyone you ever have, too. And I know that we'll make it -"  
  
"Together."  
  
to be continued 


	14. Part XIV

(Pryde/Wisdom) The Greatest Miracle of All 14/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
After Uncanny X-Men #379 and before X-Men #99.  
  
--------------  
  
Part XIV: "One step back, Two steps forward"  
  
--------------  
  
She looked out the glass, her fingertips pressed against it. There was a grand scene outside. There were bright green trees older than her oldest living relative was. There were hills of rolling green, bright green grass that spoke of the coming summer for this state. Just beyond the rise of the furthest hill was a lake. So large and free. Black as its reflection of the sky, and dotted by the same early morning's stars.  
  
Closing her eyes, she let her forehead rest on the cool glass of the sliding door, feeling her surroundings. It wasn't a feeling inside her anymore. It wasn't the emotions of everything beyond her. It was gentle feelings at the edges of her senses. The ebb and flow of power that wasn't hers but the world's around her. It brought something to her, though this morning, when she was supposed to be asleep, that she hadn't expected.  
  
"Lee?"  
  
The voice came from the back of the building she stood in and it made her lips curl slowly into a smile. Her eyes opened slowly taking in the darkness outside the glass door and feet away to the ground. They rested on the furthest point of the lake where the moon reflected on the lake showing how late it still was. Beautiful moon, too, she noted, looking from the reflection to the sky.  
  
"Lee?"  
  
Kylie had a double reaction when he called out the second time. First she found it slightly amusing, and then she found it annoying almost in a sad way. He couldn't 'just tell' where she was. Which in turn meant the same for him. For a second she bit her tongue staring out into that darkness, as she perceived this new turn of events again. They wouldn't ever be inside each other's minds again.  
  
"In the living room," she called out over her shoulder. Even though she heard him coming down the hallway before she finished her sentence, and waited for a moment for him to emerge from the hallway. He was wearing the black jeans and a black shirt, underneath a long black trench coat. His sunglasses were hanging at his collar, a comfort to her, because she loved his eyes even as they were.  
  
For a moment she smiled at the simplicity of the way he was dressed all in black, compared to what she was wearing. She had on light blue bellbottoms with colorful butterflies all around her pants, and a light floral white shirt that only buttoned in the center, with long sleeves and synched wrists. What a duo of difference they made. It made her smile wider, infectiosly so, since she watched her brother smile looking at her.  
  
"All packed?"  
  
"Yep," Kylie nodded, and pointed to the bags by the door. "Whenever you are."  
  
"Two bags only?" Kyle asked curiously.  
  
"I didn't think I'd need much. Some of my favorite clothes and my new lap top." She rubbed her hands together for a few seconds as she thought about this place. They'd barely been here a month even and they were already headed to somewhere else.  
  
"I left a few boxes of ours to be shipped by Donovan in an hour or two to the house in Paris. The donation people will come pick up everything else in a few hours. Everything's already in order. If we need anything, its not like we can't buy it on the way," she finished with only a hint of the smile she'd had. The money wasn't an important thing to either of them. It was simply a fact. They had disgusting amounts of money at their fingertips.  
  
After their foster parents' death they'd learned fast how to manage it between their parents' people and themselves. No matter how much they spent a year, no matter how much they donated, no matter how much they simply gave away, it kept coming in. More and more each year. And, of course the world knew, they were the billionaire Chartez twins, left all the money, houses, companies and so much more by their parents' fatal accident.  
  
"Let's get going then," Kyle said, and Kylie found herself wondering just exactly what he might be thinking at the moment. It was going to be something she knew she'd wonder about for the rest of her life now. She wasn't sure she was fond of that notion at all.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Knock, knock.  
  
"Sir?"  
  
Knock, knock.  
  
"Excuse me, Sir?"  
  
Knock, knock.  
  
"Sir? Are you awake?"  
  
Knock, kno-  
  
"What in the bleedin' hell do you want at this hour?"  
  
Suddenly the door was thrown halfway back by a devilish looking figure, with messy hair, and dark foggy eyes surrounded by shadowed bags from little sleep. His attire didn't even match his comment. There were no sleeping clothes. Simply rumpled work clothes it looked to the girl. The only thing that even looked like he might have been resting was the fact his shirt was loose and unbuttoned, hanging around him like a second skin.  
  
His eyes narrowed on her speculatively and the girl felt her stomach do a little flop. She didn't usually do anything to customers, but then most of your customers didn't look they could ever do anything to you. She wasn't so sure about this man. Especially the way he smelled of alcohol and almost seemed to barely cling to the cigarette in one of his hands like he wasn't noticing it at all.  
  
"Do you know what time it is?"  
  
"A package for you was brought to the front desk with express understanding that it should be given to you now, sir," the girl said, holding out a brown paper bag whose upper edge closed around a bottle top. An obvious dead giveaway to what it was of course. The girl tucked at her straw blonde hair nervously as he looked from it back to her.  
  
"There's no name," the man in room one-forty-one replied after looking in the bag a moment. "Who sent this?"  
  
"Umm," the woman looked a little nervous, glancing off down the hallway to her right for a second. "A young woman. Light skin. Dark eyes. She was looking for you by name. Something about you telling her you were here. I don't think she gave me her name."  
  
Watching something dawn in his eyes, the way he looked from the bottle to her, she really wished she could just turn around and leave. This was not a normal procedure. He seemed to grip the bottle a bit closer to him now, and he was faintly swinging it at her when he spoke. He put his cigarette back up to his lips, and as she watched a thin trail of smoke leave him a second later, he began to speak again, his expression fully cynical.  
  
"She leave a message or anything else?"  
  
"No, si-"  
  
"Yes-" another voice answered and forced the door he'd so purposely opened only slightly open more, as the person grabbed the door. And who was it? Of course. The other ruddy person who would be here at this point. Light skin. Dark eyes. She was looking for you by name. Something about telling her you were here. He was looking at her as she spoke, even though he was caught between the urge to wring her neck till she stopped breathing or hug her until he couldn't hold on anymore.  
  
"She wants you to know she's been a colossal jerk and that she's sorry," Kitty said with a hand still pressed on the door, that he was holding pretty firmly.  
  
"Can I go back to the desk now?" the girl next to them piped up. They both turned their heads to look at her, almost like they might have forgotten she was there for a moment.  
  
"Yeah. Thanks, Cindy," Kitty said, as she watched the pert young blonde turn and vanish pretty quickly down the hallway. Watching her an extra second, she felt a sort of impending doom sensation in the pit of her stomach, and she reminded herself she was here to apologize, not grovel for forgiveness. Especially with the way his expression had tightened on seeing her.  
  
He hadn't expected her. He hadn't truly looked like he'd wanted her there either.  
  
Pulling a deep breath in slowly between pursed lips, he watched her turn around and face him. Then he wished someone would have kicked him because the first thing he noticed was how, in this harsh bright yellow light of the motel, she still looked beautiful. The sleeplessness, the alcohol, and the anger hadn't made it any duller. Somehow it simply shot right through all of it to make that ache he'd been nursing just hurt more.  
  
Brown fawn eyes just stared at him, as neither of them made a move to say anything. He could tell she looked a little sleep deprived herself and nervous. She looked pretty awake though, against him who was halfway gone. But then he'd been in an attempt to pretty much drink himself to sleep. It'd worked the past two nights. She cleared her throat and asked just what he'd been dreading to hear.  
  
"So, can I come in?"  
  
Pete stared at her a moment longer, wondering just what it was that had brought her here. Then he pushed the door open, letting it hit the wall with a slight thud where the doorknob hit the wall first and caused it to bounce back.  
  
"Sure. Make yourself at home," he said as he finished his cigarette and turned to go find an astray and put it out. He knew he hadn't made it sound inviting. What'd she think? She'd just show up here three days later and he'd be all happy to see her?  
  
Well, he wasn't. And he was. What more did she want now?  
  
Not saying anything to make up for the mess, he started to button his shirt. The bed was unmade, and a comforter was thrown off of it, half across the bottom edge of it, part in the space between it and the wall. The couch was littered with this and that of his stuff and an open bag. The table between the couch and the TV was covered in smaller and larger bottles and cans, all empty, plus one slightly open but now two day old pizza. TV was running a movie, volume on low.  
  
"Nice place," she said, her voice slightly wavering, the irony in her tone easy for him to pick out, as he watched her eyes go over the room.  
  
"You don't like it." Pete replied, his voice very slightly slurred. "Sorry, I'll find a bett'r room to accommodate yer visit. Eighteenth century décor more yer style?"  
  
She'd winced when he'd put such an emphasis on the word 'visit', but he was decidedly not going to make it any easier for her. He'd only waited how many days now before she got off her high horse and found him? How long?  
  
"Fine," she answered after a moment, and took a seat on the edge of the couch, at the opposite end from where he was. She didn't look comfortable at all, and he wondered if he liked that either. "I deserved that. It's not the worse place we have in Salem Center though. I've seen Logan in worse."  
  
Kitty didn't react when Pete slightly snorted at the comment, watching him slide half the TV table's contents into a trashcan right next to it, and then set the bottle that she'd brought for him down on the table. Still in the paper bag. It could have been anything. It wasn't though. It was a rather large bottle of Scotch. Good, expensive scotch and one of his favored brands of it. Well, it had been when they were dating.  
  
She looked at the floor as this silence passed. He didn't say anything and she didn't say anything. He glanced at her now and then. She seemed to be intently reading a label on a can of beer. Bad beer, remarked his mind. Very bad. Americans didn't have the best taste for the 'finer' things. Or at least this place didn't.  
  
"This isn't working, is it?"  
  
For about half a minute he wondered if she'd actually said something, until she looked up at him from the couch. Her conscience might as well have been in her eyes. She looked down at her hands again, where they rested on her jeans in her lap. He was almost glad she had, because when she started talking the pain in her voice started to get to him so much he knew if she'd actually been looking at him he might actually have to go hug her, or find a way to make her stop.  
  
"There were reasons we both went different ways months ago. A child can't solve that, and even though it's not its fault, maybe trying to make it work out only makes it worse - for all involved. We've got two different lives in two different worlds, in two very far apart places, Pete. I know you're not comfortable here and I know your dad's not doing so well. Romany told me so last time she called to check and see how you were doing."  
  
He watched her take a deep breath and waited to say anything. Then she went on.  
  
"I know I haven't been much of a help to any of that since the moment you showed up. I never even thanked you for showing up so fast or for staying around. For dropping anything and everything that you had going on at that moment in your life, regardless of not knowing about it. And with things getting worse for your dad, and Romany being alone, you could- I mean, I'd understand if you want to go to them."  
  
"Pryde-" he started, but she hadn't finished and she went right over him.  
  
"And if you don't come back." Emotion thick in her voice, Kitty was staring hard at the wood of the coffee table now. She'd practiced what she was going to say hundreds of times in her shower, dressing, and driving here.and now she feared she might break into tears if she didn't stop herself. "I won't make you stay somewhere you don't want to, and as you already pointed out I don't need help getting any money. I'll..I'll understand if you don't want to be here."  
  
"Yer already an X-Men, Kitty, are y'u goin' to make having a baby a martyr's cause, too?" Tapping a cigarette against his hand, the urge to have another one over powered by the fact he wouldn't while she was here, for the same reason he hadn't been doing it whenever she was around now. He concentrated on her health and the baby's for the time being. He frowned when she'd actually visibly flinched at his words.  
  
"I could have left any time I want'd. There are flights that leave anytime of day 'r night. If being home was more important th'n being here at the moment, that's where I'd be. It's not yet a dire emergency for me to be at the old coot's side. An' you-"  
  
He stopped and stared at her for a second. Something didn't seem right. He watched her back and shoulders shake from behind the couch and watched her pick up a hand to her face. Was she crying? She sniffled suddenly and that confirmed it for him. She was crying. Well, that cut through stuff. She was sitting on his couch crying now.  
  
And he was still just standing there behind her.  
  
"Pryde?"  
  
"I'm okay, Pete. Just give me a moment." She sniffled, again, and her arm moved like she was wiping off her face. Her voice came out slightly strangled now. "And maybe a tissue."  
  
As he started to ravage through the bag on the couch next to her, she took a few deep breaths and started calming herself down. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine. She really, really was. She didn't need to be here crying in front of him. It was almost too humiliating now.  
  
"Here," he said and held something out to her.  
  
As she reached out to take the hank kerchief that had come from almost the bottom of his bag, he actually looked at her face. She looked away a second later but it was a piercing feeling where it was a dull ache inside him. Four months ago he would have gathered her into his arms and either made it better or let her cry until she couldn't cry anymore.  
  
Now it was this uncomfortable oddness of having no clue at all what he should do- what he was still allowed to do.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
Kitty laughed, and put her face in her hands when laughing had caused more tears. It was funny though, for some reason she couldn't quite lay her finger on at the moment. He was asking what was wrong not with this curious sound of concern but like he knew something devastating had happened. Moving to wipe her face with the handkerchief, she still didn't move too much further than having her elbows on her knees and staying there.  
  
"It's nothing really," she said, trying to make herself sound convincing. The fact that her voice cracked in the center of the sentence wasn't helping at all either. "It's not that bad."  
  
More silence passed and it seemed like an eternity and a huge effort just to make herself say something. Especially after he reached out and very tentatively touched her shoulder. She hadn't even noticed that he'd moved the bag and sat down next to her till then. Looking up at him, she felt this wave inside her starting to crest. She hated it being there. She hated herself for crying like a child in front of him.  
  
Pete was decidedly liking not knowing what to with her less and less as this progressed. Once she looked up it hurt like hell not to know, because the pain in her eyes seemed huge, because of the fact she didn't cry usually unless something large was happening. Reaching up to wipe at her face, just as more tears formed at the edges of her eyes, he watched her tilt her head as if thinking, even though she didn't turn away, just look away this time.  
  
"It's just everything. It's everyone on tip toes at home, not sure whether to be disapproving or compassionate. It's about everyone leaving to go do grand and glorious things as non mutants. It's-" she managed to stop herself before she said it was him being near her again. "It's like everything's just falling apart, and the more I try to make something fit or work right now, the more it just falls apart."  
  
After her last words she winced slightly, and shook her head, sounding rueful of herself. "And now I'm crying, again, and because of it I'm getting a head ache."  
  
Well, in truth it had probably all started the day before. She'd started getting this headache a day before. It only hurt a lot when she cried. It seemed to amplify it. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come here and start crying in front of you. I really just meant to come tell you I was sorry and--"  
  
"Pryde, it's all right." Pete pulled a pillow out from one side of him and held it out for her. "Here, have a pillow. Lay down fer a few minutes before you go back, maybe it'll help get rid of yer headache."  
  
He'd meant on the bed, because he could sit here and watch the telly, and let her sleep it off a bit if she was willing. So he felt a bit startled when she suddenly curled up on the couch, with her head less than a few inches from his leg. He relaxed after a few seconds, and then tensed back up again when she started shaking and crying almost soundlessly again, except for the fact he could see tears roll down one of her cheeks on profile.  
  
This was torture he decided. Complete torture. Not knowing what he was supposed to do, or not do, and watching her first sit there, and now lay there in so much pain. Trying to keep it from him, even now. After going between watching her and watching the telly for a minute or two, he reached out and started stroking her hair softly.  
  
It was a while before she calmed down completely and her breathing became completely normal, with no sound in that time but the television speaking and her randomly timed sniffles. Neither of them saying anything during the time. Just her there, and him there. He'd thought she'd fallen asleep at the point when her voice actually startled him.  
  
"Pete?"  
  
"Yeah?" He said, taking his hand away from her hair, even though doing it seemed like a harder chore than thinking about pulling it away.  
  
"Why are you still here?" she asked, moving for a moment and fluffing her pillow, and setting it back. This time against his leg without realizing it.  
  
"Because the hotel rates are good. There's no Romany to make me get out of bed at dawn, and that place down the street makes good grits," he said, glancing over at her head facing away from where he was thinking that among the few things he was there simply for her. That was it. That was all he needed.  
  
He heard her yawn and watched her move to wrap her arms around herself, and wondered if he even knew what was happening on the television or could tell anyone what the program had been that was ending, since he seemed to be just watching her. About ten minutes passed in silence, complete and utter silence after he turned the TV off, and just leaned against the back of the couch, and she surprised him again.  
  
"Pete?"  
  
He nearly jumped at not expecting her voice and realizing he had been falling asleep, too. He blinked his eyes at the near darkness of the room, save the one lamp on the bed behind them. "Hmm?"  
  
"Would you come stay in the mansion?" she mumbled, the end of the sentence slightly tilted by a yawn that followed.  
  
He looked at her laying against his leg, thinking about moving her to the bed and just sleeping on the couch. Not making her drive home at all till she rested. "I'm not sure th' rest of yer friends would feel  
  
I belong there. They don' like me much."  
  
It seemed a long time before she answered again, and at that point she yawned, again, and mumbled. "Oh...that's my fault, too."  
  
He seemed a bit surprised by that answer, "W'ot?"  
  
Silence seemed to reign supreme for moments on end, so he shifted partly.  
  
"Pryde?"  
  
Turning slightly so he'd be able to look down at her he realized she was fast asleep, her hair loose across her cheek and her back, making her look against tonight's actions very peaceful. He looked around the room for a moment, and decided this was definitely not what he expected of the am hours of this new day. It seemed better than yesterday, if a bit more confusing, but better nonetheless.  
  
To Be Continued.. 


	15. Part XV

(Pryde/Wisdom) The Greatest Miracle of All 15/?  
  
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.  
  
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.  
  
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.  
  
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!  
  
After Uncanny X-Men #379 and before X-Men #99.  
  
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Part XV: "New Beginnings"  
  
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Katherine sighed and ran a hand through her hair until it ran into the messy bun held by a pencil at the crown of her head. Taking that moment to glance around the room, she looked at it again, somehow needing to memorize completely this room that she already knew blueprint schematics, and so many memories of. It felt like it was fading all around her. Like she might look back in a few seconds and it would just suddenly be gone.  
  
It might have only been the Master control center for the Danger Room, accessible only through the War Room, but this place was so much of her growing up. She felt very defensively like someone had suddenly made it all into a toy and said it was time to put it away now because there would be no more use for it in her coming years.  
  
The Danger Room wasn't used for training by anyone lately- except Logan, and she was still trying to figure out how he'd gotten into the house, into the Danger Room, done a few high level sequences and left again without anyone noticing at all. No one seemed to know where he'd been since last week. Like always there were no numbers where to reach him or notes about where he'd gone or when he'd come back.  
  
She'd taken it as well as she could, but it still felt like someone had punched her a few times in a row whenever she thought about it. He'd left without a goodbye. Even after what she'd said to him. Everyone was leaving now. The house was sparse in people now; emptier than it seemed to have ever been in her entire life spent in this place.  
  
Putting her chin on her hands she gazed through the glass. It was unused state, and didn't look like anything but a very large room made of metal, with one huge door and no other ways out. The room was completely bare. It seemed wrong for it to be so large and so empty. Thinking back on all she knew of its creation and redesigning across the years she let out another sigh.  
  
"Problems, Katzchen?"  
  
Kitty looked to her right to see a very human Kurt standing in the doorway. It was another of the little adjustments. When everyone lost their powers, it seemed safe to assume now, they lost and gained everything to become truly normal for the human genome. It she just looked at him, without the speech or movement, it almost wasn't him.  
  
Pale peach skin where it used to be blue fur, blue eyes where they had been mostly yellow, fanged teeth turned blunt, five fingers, five toes, and no tail. A second later she thought wryly, because it popped up, and now no slight beard or goatee on the long gaunt face, either, although neither of those had been a power loss consequence, but a choice of his. He would almost look like a stranger if not for the fact the small thing, the ones that were so innately him and no one else, were not lost.  
  
"Not new ones. It'll be a good day for as long as that can hold true," she said, as she let herself fall back into the padded chair. Staring up at him from it as she swiveled to the right to be facing him, she asked and reached up to tap a few buttons on the front console with her left hand. "Acrobatic bar set up number 12, again?"  
  
"I hadn't thought anyone else would be up here," he said, even as he nodded to her, and she noted the slight differences in his voice once again. She'd been listing them as she talked to him. Even though none of them found this anything like a walk in the park, he was taking it harder than many of them had. It sounded slightly melancholy, sometimes too stretched, angry, sad. She wondered if everyone felt helpless to everyone else here?  
  
This is what happens to heroes - she thought suddenly, forcing herself not to sneer when it hit her - when they were no longer needed.  
  
Turning the chair to face the glass, she started typing across the board. Things started to move and pop out in the room below them both as she spoke.  
  
"Before Ororo and Sara left to check out that camp advertisement, she asked me if I'd mind coming down here and seeing what we needed and what we didn't need down here now. Making a list of what was vital here still-" Kitty took a breath looking at the setup below her. This looked normal. It just didn't feel normal anymore. As her finger stopped typing things on the keyboard, she frowned slightly. "-and turn off what wasn't."  
  
Just then she stood, pushing up with her hands on the edge of the desk, and letting the chair roll back behind her as she looked at him. "I've been down here since dawn and, so far, I've turned off the light in the bathroom."  
  
~*~*~  
  
"You are so lucky."  
  
"Hmm?" Kylie mumbled, and shifted slightly, only halfway coming from her reverie at the woman's voice. The warmth was incredible, the way it laced up her legs, through her back and arms, filling her with liquid lava. She wished she didn't have to move ever again from this spot.  
  
"Your boyfriend- he's like amazing hot."  
  
"Boyfriend?" She lifted opened her eyes and lifted her head to look at the girl next to her. She had slightly darker skin and deep black hair. Her name was Reanann and she'd been present company since the first dinner on the boat. Pretty pleasant and nice company, too. Even if not the company she really desired. But the company she really desired liked to be alone and unsociable.  
  
He always had.  
  
"Yeah," Reanann said with a laugh as she rolled over on to her back and readjusted her bikini before folding her hands behind her head. "Talk, dark and handsome, likes to wait on your hand and foot. Ring any bells?"  
  
"Oh, him."  
  
"Oh, him?" the girl continued to laugh, making her curl slightly to one side while she kept talking to Kylie sunbathing. "What a funny one you are. I know I wouldn't be able to forget that type of man."  
  
"Well," Kylie said, sitting up. She pulled up a small towel from where it was folded next to her and started dabbing at her skin with it. "That's because he's not my boyfriend. He's my brother."  
  
"Your brother?" Reanann said, sounding startled. "Your guys don't seem like most siblings. I mean- swimming, eating, playing games, dancing. You guys are barely apart. I'm surprised he's not right here right now. And with that affectio-"  
  
The brunette looked over at her as the girl broke off. It was always somewhere between uncomfortable and intriguing to find out what someone though of the two of them as siblings. She always just thought it was obvious. They looked so alike. "Yes?"  
  
"Well, uh, I don't mean this as an insult or anything," Reanann said as she pushed up on one arm, making a glare from the sun momentarily blind a walker from the silver bathing suite. "It's just you guys are affectionate. Obviously affectionate. Always hugging, or holding hands, talking to each other, touching each other. I just thought.well, I just never imagined you guys were sibs. Wow, now I feel like a real ditz."  
  
"Don't," Kylie said, looking off across the walk at the ocean beyond them. She realized she felt a little numb thinking about it. Did they really stick out that much? "It's really okay."  
  
"No, - well, see, like I was telling you my dads one of the people that runs this boat and they have these pseudo cute-dumb awards that are given out during the trip. I put you two down under cutest couple."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I-I," Reanann stumbled for a second, grabbing her towel. "I'll go fix it right now, so no one else gets the wrong impression from my vote. I'm so sorry, Kylie. I didn't mean to put you in this spot."  
  
Kylie's mumble of "It's alright," got caught up in the movement of the girl grabbing her bag, and dashing off, saying behind her. "I'll catch you at dinner."  
  
Pulling her knees to her chest, she looked out at the ocean. It was endless and rolling. It always seemed to her like it was singing to you if you just listened close enough. The song of the entire world, all its history and all its mysteries. They were all in the song of the ocean.  
  
How long she stared at it, she didn't know, because she never stopped looking at it untill something blocked her view. She felt perturbed, even though the shadow cast over her felt slightly nice. Pushing her sunglasses up into her auburn hair, the red brought out even more by this trip, she looked up. For a second she felt almost startled, because she was looking up into Kyle's face and he was the one who'd suddenly blocked her.  
  
He took a seat next to her, and held out one of the two drinks he was holding for her. For a moment she just looked at it, and then she took it. Almost hesitating to even touch it. She felt his reaction simply because she knew he'd realize she was acting odd. She could probably tell you in steps how his face reacted and then his mind.  
  
Except she wasn't in there anymore. It was just old hat. It was habit. It was like breathing.  
  
Now it was just remembering.  
  
"Thanks," she said after a second and took a sip of it, going back to looking at the ocean. She sipped at her drink until suddenly she realized it was gone. She wasn't sure if she just faded out or simply lost time, until she heard her brother clear his throat. She pursued her lips waiting for it, because it was coming.  
  
"So, are you going to tell me what's wrong or leave me to guess?" Kyle said, throwing a touch of amusement in with the concern that underlay it all.  
  
"I," she started, but didn't finished, closing her mouth. She curled in a little more, then took a deep breath through her nose and tried again. "I was thinking, if it didn't bother you too much, we'd eat dinner apart tonight. Reanann's invited me to eat with her and her father, and I was hoping you wouldn't mind."  
  
"Of course, I don't mind. Sounds like it'll fun." He said, sounding exactly what she didn't want him to sound like in that second. Completely understanding and soothing. Not grasping for her, or needing her to be somewhere right by his side. They'd never been that way. They just did things together. Simply because that's the way they liked it best. Never discussed or debated really, it just was.  
  
And if the right thing to do was to put a little more distance between that and herself: why did she feel like the simple thing she was going to ask, even before that conversation with Reanann, was so wrong now?  
  
~*~*~  
  
Still not completely comfortable with the situation he found himself in seven days later, Pete Wisdom found himself on the way to the downstairs living room. It had a wonderful capability for everything and anything you wanted in music, movies, shows, and a minor selection of books that the people living here has transited from their main in-house library.  
  
He hadn't expected the person to be in there who was, though, or what they'd be doing. He stood at the door for a few moments watching the man inside the room. He was hanging a portrait above the fireplace on the left side of the room, near the sliding glass door that led to the walk to the pool. It still had a drape over it but he caught a flash of a gold or copper edge as the man moved it back and forth.  
  
He settled it into place and turned towards the couch, not noticing Pete yet. Gathering things into a duffel bag, he jumped slightly when he realized he wasn't alone.  
  
"Leavin', are you?"  
  
The large Russian brushed his ponytail over his shoulder as he nodded and lifted the bag to his shoulder, having gotten over the surprise already, but not looking anymore pleased than he really had to. Civil, but not pleased. "Paris; to visit a new art museum."  
  
"Hope you have a blast."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
Neither of them seemed to be moving at all, just staring at each other. One nicely dressed in slacks and an almost polo button up shirt, both pressed. The other scraggly dressed in pants and a long white shirt, both rumpled. The tension in the room only seemed to escalate the longer the silence got. So, of course, he decided to simply break the silence with a sound at first.  
  
Pulling out a cigarette, he lit it, saying. "You p'rolly have a taxi waiting, so why don't you just say what'ver is yer dyin' to say to me."  
  
Piotr stared at him a while longer before he finally spoke, and there was a dangerous promise in his words that anyone could have told was true just from hearing it. "I'll find a new way to break you in half, if you hurt her again."  
  
"It won't happen," Pete said, letting out a thin stream of smoke, walking into the main living room closer to where the Russian was standing. He didn't seem fazed on the outside at all, which on the inside he weighed the options. A metal formed colossus he'd have no chance against.but a simple man, maybe a foot or two taller? "But I'd love ta see you try."  
  
"Do I get to choose which way you're both broken in half when Kitty hears of this?"  
  
They both turned and both of their faces resembled what only little children with their hands caught in a cookie jar looked like, because there she stood in the doorway, not looking quite pleased with either of them.  
  
"Kurt reminded me you were leaving today, so I came to see you off." Her arms were crossed in front of her, and Kitty looked between both of them before settling on Piotr. The picture on the wall distracted her for a second, with minor curiosity. "Done with your memory painting?"  
  
"Da," Piotr said quietly, obviously not comfortable with the fact his 'Katya' had heard him say what he'd held back from saying for a month already. "I was going to show it to you before I left." Walking a few steps back toward the fireplace, he lifted the top of the drop cloth from one side and pulled it off, revealing his picture and a small plaque with a name on it below it. Folding the cloth in his hands, he didn't look to her for a reaction quite yet.  
  
Kitty though was staring in awe. If this was a memory he thought to bring back to life it seemed to be brought back enough to her. She felt a knot form in her throat as she stared at it, even though her lips formed into a slight smile.  
  
It was a picture of Illyana and her long from long ago. She couldn't have been more than fifteen and Illyana fourteen, maybe fifteen, too. It was set in the side garden in a small, secluded spot where a bench sat surrounded by fountains of roses. They were sitting on the bench, looking not at all like heroes, but like best friends sharing a joke. Both seemed to know something so funny, that looking at the painting made you wonder what they were laughing at.  
  
"Oh, Piotr- It's beautiful," she said after catching her breath. It seemed like someone just took a moment out of time and kept it fresh, and new, and perfect. It made her miss Illyana just a little more at that moment, but not in a bad way. It reminded her of all the best moments all at once.  
  
At that moment, a beep sounded from outside, and all of them glanced toward a window, even though you couldn't see the front of the house perfectly from here.  
  
"That would be the taxi," Piotr answered as he laid the drop cloth on top of one of the shelf edges near him. "I'm glad you like it. It's yours."  
  
"Wow, thanks," she said smiling a bit brighter again. And stepped out of the doorway. "We'll walk you to the door," she added, casting a glance at Pete who didn't look that pleased at all, though she was happy to see that the cigarette he'd had in his hand had mysteriously vanished away once again.  
  
"Right behind you," he muttered, following them out of the room. Right behind you..with a bat, or a crowbar, or something.something nicer, like your painting.  
  
The walk to the door was short, and really had nothing to do with him. He'd already given Piotr all the farewell he was going to get from him, but with Kitty's word he followed anyway, grousing in his head about wanting to go back all the way. Especially once they started saying good-byes. He'd have rather not watched it, especially because of the painting already.  
  
"We'll hear from you soon, right?" She asked as he opened the door and let sunshine in from outside, brightening even further the front walkway.  
  
"Soon as I get there, if need be," he said with a small smile, staring at her from the vantage height.  
  
"Good," she said and then she hugged. Which made her laugh, when he actually picked her up to give her a real hug, not having to bend down the whole time during it. He kissed her cheek and told her to call if she needed to and set her down.  
  
Pete looked off to one side the second they hugged, picking apart the colors on the wallpaper, as he tried to completely ignore the swelling sense of jealousy that was growing inside of him. It was nice wallpaper. Bright. Drab. Boring. It fit the house perfectly.  
  
"Enjoy Paris!" Kitty said louder from the front steps. "Bring back souvenirs, too!"  
  
Pete looked up pretty much at this point to see the Russian man laugh and get in the taxi, and watch it speed away from the door, which Kitty was walking back toward now. She seemed happy. A constant flexible state she'd sometimes had during the past week, more often than he'd seen before at least. At least -she- was happy, right?  
  
That was a good thing, right?  
  
"So when do you get to have your getaway?"  
  
"What?" Kitty asked, raising an eyebrow as she closed the front door behind her.  
  
"Well, as near as I can tell," Pete replied as he walked down the hall with her. "Everyone is going their merry way. Either vacations, or family, or something else."  
  
Walking up to the security box she reset the door. Something all too much habit, even though it didn't really need so much security now. "I signed on to stay and watch the house. This is my home. I don't have anywhere else I really want to be."  
  
"Nowhere you even want to visit?"  
  
"Not really." Kitty shrugged as she turned around, smiling wickedly. "Why, Mr. Wisdom? Are you afraid of playing house with me?"  
  
Bloody hell, he thought. She's going to be the death of me. If somewhere between that smile and the jealousy I don't go crazy first.  
  
  
  
To Be Continued... 


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